“Well,Ithink you and your dad are both great,” Andy said, with a note of defiance.
“Despite all this?” I waved expansively at the house and grounds as the dogs brought the ball back again, bouncing eagerly while they waited for Andy to throw once more.
“I could get used to it,” Andy shrugged. “As long as you’re not, like, in line for the throne or anything.”
“Ah. Well…”
Andy blinked at me. “You’re not,” he said. “You’renot.”
“Depends on how you, umm… well. Not immediately, in any case. Quite a long way down the line of succession. By the time England got to me, they’d already be in such a shambles that it wouldn’t make much of a difference.”
Andy blinked again, pausing to throw the ball for the dogs and then turning back to me, brows knitted together.
“You’re not kidding, are you? I know the look in your eyes you get when you’re joking. This isn’t a joke. You could be theking of fucking Englandone day, couldn’t you?”
“It’s virtually impossible,” I defended. “Short of genuinely apocalyptic events or a series of very pointed assassinations. But I am… technically, distantly part of the broader royal family, yes.”
“Oh, so just… if I see zombies, I gotta book an audience if I wanna talk to you.”
“If you see zombies, I really hope you’ll tell me straight away,” I said. “It’d take a while to board up the house and the only one of us who’s a halfway decent shot with a rifle is Mother.”
“Really?”
“Really, she has the medals to prove it,” I said.
“Do you know your family’s weird?” Andy asked as the dogs returned, kneeling down to greet them and letting them lick his face again.
The light was starting to fail, and my breath was fogging in front of my face, but he was having so much fun that I couldn’t bring myself to even consider suggesting we go inside.
“I am aware of a certain eccentricity,” I admitted. “But what were you expecting? You know me, you must have realized I came from a strange family.”
“I thought you were just… British.” Andy shrugged. “Hey, how did you know Pegasus was skittish?”
“Because Pegasuswasskittish,” I said. “The winged horse, I mean. Famously so.”
“Oh.” Andy kicked at a tuft of grass. “I only know him from Hercules. You know, the Disney movie.”
“My father is a great expert on subjects which are most useful in the realm of the pub quiz,” I explained. “He has always loved Greek myths. They served as my bedtime stories when I was little.”
“Your dad read you bedtime stories?”
“Yes,” I said, an ember of happiness glowing in my chest at the memory. “It’s only Mother who doesn’t like me. Always insisted that I ruined her figure permanently, although I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to blame me for things that happened before I was born. Anyway. Pegasus was famously skittish.”
“And Bellerophon?”
“You don’t want to save this for a bedtime story?” I teased.
“You can tell me a different one later,” Andy said. “I don’t wanna look like an idiot in front of your dad.”
“You won’t,” I promised. My father had never judged people for not knowing things—only for notwantingto know them. Lack of curiosity was the greatest character fault he could imagine, but Andy’s curiosity was almost boundless. “But Bellerophon was actually Pegasus’ half-brother.”
“Another horse?” Andy asked.
“No, no, quite human. But a child of Poseidon, which Pegasus also was, by Medusa.”
“The monster?”
“You see, you do know rather a lot of this tale already,” I said. “Yes, the monster, although he was conceived before she was turned into one. She was meant to be quite beautiful before then. Pegasus was born when Perseus slayed her. He sprang from her neck after Perseus took her head.”
