Page 196 of Nine-Tenths

"What…" I ask, twisting my head to get a good look at them as we cruise by. "Is this all…"

"Her achievements and victories are too numerous for her door." Dav points to a specific section of the wall when we stop and wait for the driver to confirm our appointment at the front gate. "See there? That's Elizabeth Regina standing on the cliff at Tilbury, giving her speech to the troops before the Spanish Armada was engaged."

"Pfffft. She certainly has a high opinion of herself. Look—is that herblessingShakespeare?"

"Everyone's histories are filled with bragging," Dav says. "There's a lot she's proud of."

My eyes catch on a section of the wall that appears to be the presentation to the queen of tobacco, potatoes… and Indigenous humans.

"Oh yeah.Lotsto be proud of," I sneer.

Dav squeezes my knee. "We'll be on the wall after today. She'll get the glory, but we'll get the change."

He seems so sure. I hope he's right.

And then we're rolling through the massive iron gates.

"I was kinda hoping we'd be, like, turned away," I confess in a whisper, nerves surging.

"Why?" Dav asks, "We've worked so hard—"

"I never said it made sense," I interrupt, and lift his hand to my mouth to kiss the back of it. It's the only place on him I can't muss up. "It's just the brain weasels talking."

"Don't listen to them," Dav says gently. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

So, there's a little bit to be afraid of.

We're led not to a nice, intimate sitting room as Dav and I had assumed we would, but an echoing, circular chamber lined with arched windows, stone columns, and heavy curtains. The only people in the room are the queen herself, and three others. Two are about a decade older than me, but I've stopped trying to judge dragon-adjacent people by their apparent age. They're not servants, they're dressed too elegantly for that, but I can't tell if they're human because the thrall of the queen is overwhelming. Every organ feels suddenly magnetized toward her, every cell filled with a deep thrumming. It's notuncomfortable, but it's certainlyweird.

The remaining personishuman, and I do know this because he is slim, sloe-eyed, and appears to be around the same age as the queen. This is Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, the queen’s Favorite.

Like Raibert Righ, Elizabeth Regina greets us in dragonshape. She’s seated in all her shining glory on a chaise raised on a dais, which is the only piece of furniture in the room (Where am I going to put the briefcase down? Can I kneel to open it on the floor without looking like a child?)

The queen is distinctly serpent-shaped, long and thin, with a tail held in a tight coil. Her head is narrow, her nose studded with tiny horns that grow into a full fin along the back of her head. And she isgold. Not yellow, not orange, but straight up, blinding gold with black talons and horns.

So, an intimidating and chilly environment, check.

No sound at all but the ringing of our heels filling the void of the vaulted space, check.

And just in case we might have missed that fact, there are multi-tiered candelabras on either side of her, making sure she shines like a stereotypical treasure pile.

Extraintimidating, check, check, check.

This isn't going to be the friendly reunion and open-minded conversation Dav and I had been counting on.

Shit.

As we make our way across the chamber, to where the dais is set against one window, the queenchanges. It's slow and showy, not the way that Dav does it, which is sort of all at once like a sneeze.

The queen sits up, her tail sliding around behind her, body turning paler and…

That's a flex!I think as I'm distinctly reminded that a dragon's clothing doesn't change with them.

We come to a stop a few feet from the base of the dais, and Dav slides down into a very deep bow with his painted eyes firmly aimed at his knees. I quickly do the same.

There's the rustle of fabric, and someone eventually says, "Rise."

Leicester finishes tying an elaborate cloth-of-gold wrap dress for the queen, and steps away. The queen's brilliantly golden wings stretch up and out, like an angel illuminated in stained glass, then fold slowly to nothingness behind her. Of course I'm familiar with the humanshape of my monarch—the famous strawberry hair, the severe brow, the imperious expression—but she looks older than her portraits. (Of course she does, that's how time works.) Her famous hair is now white, her heavily made-up eyes framed with the kinds of crows feet you can't get away with calling laugh lines any more.

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