Everything about my welcome to England was being engineered. I’d been shown that play for a reason. The razor edge in his tone left me in no doubt.

I was being warned. Or, perhaps, if they expected me to become their princess, being prepared.

If Saint George’s shield was England’s flag, then King Constantine’s England did not go abroad searching for enemies—be they dragons or wolves—to slay.

Indeed, England didn’t slay its enemies at all. It hid, waited them out, protected those nearest them. It had repented of its sins, learned from its wrongs. From the wreckage left and the damage done before its brutal empire bled to death.

Constantine’s Saint George stayed home and guarded his own.

I merely wished I’d been allowed the same courtesy.

Because there were worse than dragons abroad. And worse than dragons watching Daddy in Potomac.

“I thought they did well,” I finally said, smiling as best I could. “The dragon, in particular—she turned in a ferocious performance.”

The crowd laughed, and Constantine’s and Bertilak’s faces relaxed into smiles. And the room forgot me.

I turned to Bear and whispered, low enough that Myrddin wouldn’t hear. “The flowers—these flowers. What did they mean?”

The guard squinted down the table, eyeing the posy. “Lavender, violets, mint. Devotion, modesty, virtue.”

No sign of the recklessness the prince had found so offensive before. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Beneath the rising din of conversation and laughter, I leaned close to Bear again and whispered in his ear. He wet his lips, inclining his head to hear me. “That day we stood on the green, you asked what I was afraid they would see if they looked at me. That—that was it.”

His eyes sobered. “What do you mean? You gave a fine performance.”

The tournament hadn’t yet begun. But the games had.

And I’d already been shoved onto a pedestal.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “But a performance, nevertheless.”

The first day of our bargain. The sixth day of our stay. Another tick mark. So many left to go.

I fell asleep with my book open to the story of Saint George and the dragon—the old account.

I’d read it again and again, searching for anything I might have missed. Another warning. Another sign.

When I slept, I dreamed; but in my dream, the princess was out to save Saint George. He pleaded for her mercy, and she rescued him.

“Return home with me,” Saint George said when the princess had saved him.

“I can’t,” said the princess. “I have to carry on.”

“Come home, sweet girl,” said Saint George; but his voice, suddenly, was not his own. “I miss you.”

26

I woke to darkness and a sound in the hall.