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was idling his way through university, changing his mind every other week as to whether he would prefer to join the army and shoot at people in foreign places. But he was still my best ally among my brothers, and so when Mama fretted about the disruption of her plans, he offered to be my escort for the day.
    She did not consider this ideal—he might be mistaken for a suitor of mine, by those who did not know him—but I had no other chaperon arranged. (Amanda, who had come out and promptly wed the previous year, was housebound by the expectation of her first child, and could not be there to assist.) Andrew’s offer was better than my wasting the time at home, and so she agreed, with reluctance.
    Andrew caught my arm as soon as we were away from her door. “Don’t put on riding clothes,” he said, sotto voce . “We’re going to the menagerie.”
    I blinked at him, surprised but not uncooperative. I enjoyed riding, but out in the countryside; trotting around the park in boring circles held little appeal. “But we shan’t get in.”
    “Yes, we shall,” he said, his eye gleaming with conspiratorial pleasure. “The Countess of Granby has arranged for the tour, and I am permitted a guest.”
    I knew little of the menagerie, except that the king’s late father had established it on spacious grounds downstream from Falchester, and the son had spared no expense to see it stocked with every exotic creature that could be persuaded to survive in captivity. It existed primarily for the entertainment of the royal family, with occasional public days, which I, growing up in rural Tamshire, had no chance to experience. As Andrew could well guess, a tour would be a rare treat for me.
    Our guide was Mr. Swargin, the king’s naturalist. Under his direction, the menagerie was organized according to broad type: birds in one place, mammals in another, reptiles in a third, and so on. Stuffed and mounted specimens of those creatures that had passed on stood alongside the cages of those that still lived. The king possessed parrots, platypi, and piranhas; cuckoos, camels, and chameleons. I attempted to restrain my enthusiasm; learning is an admirable thing, in women as well as men, but only when it is of the right kind. (That is, of course, society’s opinion; not my own. I am glad to say it has changed somewhat since my day.) As a young lady, I should show interest only in songbirds and other such dainty creatures, lest I brand myself as ink-nosed.
    The tour was disappointing in its organization, for people wandered in and out of the various gardens and glass-walled rooms, few paying even the slightest attention to Mr. Swargin’s speeches. I wished very much to listen to him, but didn’t dare single myself out by being the only one to attend to his words, and so I caught only snatches before we stopped before a pair of very grand doors.
    “In here,” the naturalist said, in ringing tones that drew more eyes than usual, “we keep the crowning jewels of His Majesty’s collection, only recently acquired. I beg the ladies to have a care, for many find the creatures within to be frightening.”
    One may measure the extent to which I had cut myself off from my old interests that I did not have the slightest clue what the king had acquired, that lay beyond those doors.
    Mr. Swargin opened them, and we filed through into a large room enclosed by a dome of glass panels that let in the afternoon sunlight. We stood on a walkway that circled the room’s perimeter and overlooked a deep, sand-floored pit divided by heavy grates into three large pie-slice enclosures.
    Within those enclosures were three dragons.
    Forgetting myself entirely, I rushed to the rail. In the pit below me, a creature with scales of a faded topaz gold turned its long snout upward to look back at me. From behind my left shoulder, I heard a muffled exclamation, and then someone having a fainting spell. Some of the more adventurous gentlemen came to the railing and murmured