“Ma’am, can I ask where Farthing is?”

The Queen explained that she had only transported three to start with, to trial the new environment. Farthing had refused to leave the others. She smiled and then questioned me again, about the temperature, the darkness of the cave in which the lizard eggs had been found, and about the behavior I had witnessed from Farthing on the island. Mr. Darwin stayed silent. All the while I could barely resist watching the animals. I recognized Sixpence, Magma, and Basalt. Sixpence played in the water, and Magma and Basalt inspected the braziers. They had not been so animated in over a year, and I told Her Majesty so.

She clapped her hands in delight.

“I see you are keen to greet them,” she said, and removed a key from a pouch at her belt. “Only I and a guard will have a copy of this key, but Mr. Darwin may keep a key to the mine entrance,” she said. I felt a blast of chill, even as the heat inside the cave rose. This was a private, secret place, under the Queen’s full control, unlike the Zoological Park, which was in the public eye.

I waded around the outside of the pool, with no care for my boots or trousers. I knelt before Sixpence under the brazier, and the heat tickled my cheeks.

The dragon opened her eyes, and there was no sign of the dull film that I had seen at the Zoological Park. I held out my hand and Sixpence butted it gently.

The Queen was behind me. Bonnet removed, sturdy boots and gaiters beneath her long skirts, tucked high above the water. I could not believe I was wading in a cave pool with the English monarch.

She passed me a sardine, and I threw it for Sixpence. I thought of the young dragon’s magnificent mother, swooping golden through the Galapagos skies.

These animals were not made for cheap circus tricks.

“So you see they are already better,” said Queen Victoria. She whistled, and Basalt, the largest male, swam toward the Queen, rolling on his belly and then surfacing next to her with a chirp. He sat back on his haunches and she held out a scrap of fish. She whistled again and he nodded toward the fish, but she withheld it.

Then Basalt whined back to her in the same tone.

The Queen’s laugh rang high through the cave, echoing, and Basalt raised his ruff and hooted.

Could now be the time to tell Her Majesty the truth about what they were? She cared for the dragons. If I told her, she could help them. Even if this place made them well again, there would be a new problem. They would grow, and grow.

I remembered the mother dragon spouting fire.

“I taught him that, Covington,” said the Queen. “He only learned it when I found out he adores a smoked sardine, the naughty brute. Of course, these beasts are no patch on my dogs. They may be as intelligent, yet not nearly so amenable, even to their queen and protector,” she said.