He left the shampoo out of it altogether, much to my disappointment, but did say he had temporarily blinded the cyclops with his magic lantern. Then he flipped on the flashlight and shined a beam of light into the crowd.
They shielded their eyes and gasped, and were just as fascinated by the magic lantern— wanting to see and touch it—as they were by the cyclops’s head. Which they also wanted to see and touch. Even the little kids had to come up and poke the thing in its face like it was some sort of elaborate Halloween mask.
I couldn’t look at it without getting the dry heaves.
After everyone was done gaping at the head, the innkeeper took it, put it in a burlap sack, and locked it in his wine cellar for safekeeping. Then Tristan and a bunch of the menfolk went to the inn and the innkeeper brought out all sorts of food in celebration. Tristan paid for it, which I thought was backward, but everyone kept clapping him on the back and calling him the king’s new 284/431
son-in-law, so I guess they figured he could afford it.
Even Sir William, who’d been downright put out during the bonfire, became more cheerful when the food was passed around.
It looked like the feasting could go on for quite a while. I didn’t have much of a stomach for food—nearly being killed and then spending the evening with a de-capitated cyclops head will do that to you. Besides, I didn’t fit in here with these people. Not like Tristan did.
I went up to my room.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, and I didn’t even want to try. I pulled the blankets around myself and sat on the bed, leaning against the wall. I’d left the door open so I could listen to the sounds from downstairs. I wanted to hear people chatting and laughing. Happy noises. It kept at bay the dark images of the day that kept darting through my mind. The goat lunging at me.
The robbers’ leering faces. The cyclops as he rushed toward me, and the feel of his claws holding me tight as he dragged me through the forest. My ribs still hurt.
“Savannah?” I saw a silhouette in the doorway and recognized Tristan.
“Yeah?”
“Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“Because I’m too twenty-first century and if I can’t flip on a switch then it’s too much trouble to light a room.” 285/431
He hesitated, one arm on the door frame. “I want to talk to you about tomorrow.”
I figured he didn’t want to do that in the dark so I got up and walked toward the door, but he disappeared and came back with a torch that had been in the hallway. We met just inside my door. He put the torch into a hanger, then leaned against the wall looking at me. “In the morning I’m going to the castle to take the proof of the cyclops’s death to King Roderick. Did you want to come with me?”
“No.”
He nodded as though expecting as much. “That’s fine, but you have to stay here. In this room.” His blue eyes turned intense as he emphasized the point. “I don’t want to come back and find you’re off trying to help me slay the dragon, okay? I know they’re fun magical creatures in all those fantasy novels back home, but here they’re more like huge flying crocodiles. That have bad tempers.
And shoot flames out of their mouths. And eat people.
In fact, they don’t like to eat raw meat so they cook their food inside their mouths, often while listening to it scream. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” I turned away from him. “I understand perfectly. You think I’m incompetent.”
“That’s not what I said.”
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But it was too late; the stress of the day finally cres-cendoed in my mind. I was trying so hard to do things right and nothing had gone the way I’d planned. Even coming here felt like a mistake. Tristan didn’t want my help. The tears didn’t have time to well up in my eyes.
They just came, spilling out onto my cheeks.
He walked toward me, a sigh on his lips. “Don’t cry.” I wiped the tears off my cheeks but they were just replaced by others. Then I started sobbing.
“Savannah.” He said my name softly, partially with exasperation, but with something else too. Forgiveness maybe. He put his arms around me and I lay my head against his chest. The scratchy wool of his tunic pressed roughly against my cheek. I didn’t care that it felt like sandpaper or smelled of the bonfire smoke. I wound my arms around his waist.
The tears kept coming but breathing was easier.
“It’s okay,” he said, and then said it over and over while stroking my hair. “You’re not incompetent. Hey, you’re the one who brought the Shampoo Bottle of Death with you.” His fingers lingered over a lock of my hair and he brought it up to his face. “Not only will it disable monsters but it makes your hair smell good too.” I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t.
“Look, I’m sorry I yelled at you before,” he said, and he let out another sigh. “It’s just . . . you belong back in 287/431
high school. Back with the cheerleaders, and the track team, and the mall. Safe things. Things that don’t eat girls. You don’t realize how dangerous all of this is. It’s some sort of game to you.”
“No, it’s not.”
He ran his fingers across the back of my hair. “Why did you come back to the Middle Ages to help me?” I lifted my head up to look at him. “I had to. It was the right thing to do.”
His expression was unreadable, serious. He nodded slightly but I had no idea whether my explanation satisfied him.
“I didn’t mean to send you here,” I said. “I was just upset about the whole Hunter thing and not thinking clearly.”
“I know,” he said.
“And okay, a lot of times I don’t think clearly, but I’m trying.”
“I know,” he said again. His hand moved from my hair down my back. Which, by the way, suddenly made it hard to think clearly.
My voice came out just above a whisper. “I’m really not looking for a prince.”
“Good.”
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He was so near, and it was so comforting to have his arms around me. I didn’t want him to move away from me. “What does Princess Margaret’s hair smell like?”
“Cough medicine.”
It bothered me that he actually knew the answer to that question. “Is that where you were all day? With her?”
He looked up at the ceiling as though trying to make an accounting of his time, but he didn’t let go of me. “I was talking to members of the king’s guards who’ve dealt with the dragon before, practicing archery with the other knights, and yes, part of the time I was trying to pump Princess Margaret for information on the Black Knight.”
That shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. “Did she tell you anything useful?”
“Not really. She’s upset about something. I didn’t catch the whole conversation between her and Lady Theodora, but apparently whoever it was who stood her up yesterday still hasn’t come by to beg her forgiveness.”
“The Black Knight?”
He shrugged. “Who knows?” His hand was back on my hair, twisting strands of it between his fingers. Quite distracting.
I said, “Your future fiancée wouldn’t let me out of her room.”
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He showed no alarm at this news. “She thought you were sick. You told her yourself that you were.”
“I don’t trust her and I don’t think you should either, even if she is demure . . . and has a nice dowry.”
“You don’t need to be jealous.” He tightened his arms, pressing me closer to him. “Some girls don’t need to bribe guys into liking them.”
He bent down to kiss me, and I tilted my face up to meet his lips. I wanted more than anything to kiss him, to feel like he cared about me that way. It felt like triumph, like acceptance. Then with a thud to my heart, I remembered what a kiss would do and pushed him away.