“Yes.”

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He reached me, and once he was satisfied that I wasn’t injured, the concern in his expression turned into anger. He put one hand to his temple, then held it out in my direction. “Okay, is there some reason you keep trying to kill yourself, some sort of death wish I should know about?”

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” I said, my words tumbling together. “Sir William told everyone in the inn that he was going to kill the ogre tomorrow, and I didn’t think you’d make it back in time, so I had to try and take care of it myself.”

Tristan looked at me like I’d lost my mind, then walked past me. I swung the flashlight beam after him to see what he was doing. A few feet away from me, his sword stood upright in the ground. He pulled it out with one hand, then strode past me to the cyclops.

“I was trying to help you, you know,” I called after him.

“And I’ve had enough of your help. If you ‘help’ me any more you’ll get us both killed.” I took two steps toward him. “I know you don’t believe me, but I have an invincibility enchantment. I fought off three thieves on the way to the inn with nothing but a riding crop. How do you explain that if I’m not invincible?”

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He’d reached the cyclops, but turned back to face me.

“Three thieves?” A look of frustration crossed his face.

“Did it even occur to you before you took off from the castle that it wasn’t a good idea to go running around the forest by yourself?”

“The point is,” I said firmly, “I beat them off, which proves that I’ve got an invincibility enchantment.” He put one foot on the cyclops’s chest and tugged at his spear, trying to remove it. “Men here aren’t used to ladies who fight back. You probably just took them by surprise and spooked them off.” He gestured toward the cyclops as if presenting me evidence. “You weren’t invincible against this thing.”

“I didn’t take into account that the cyclops wasn’t human.”

“Yeah, well, once again, that’s where paying attention in school could have helped you.” I put one hand on my hip in disbelief. “Oh, you mean back in health class when they taught us what to do in case of a cyclops attack?”

“World Lit. The Odyssey.” The spear broke instead of coming free, and Tristan tossed it aside in disgust. He wouldn’t be able to reuse it.

I didn’t say any more about being enchanted. What was the point? He refused to take what I said seriously.

“Hold the beam on the cyclops’s head,” he told me.

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I did, but couldn’t watch when I realized what Tristan was about to do. I heard the thwack of his sword and shuddered. A minute later Tristan walked back to me carrying the cyclops’s head by the hair.

He handed me his sword to hold, then took the flashlight from me and strode into the forest. I walked beside him, keeping my gaze averted from what he held in his hand. We walked for a few minutes in silence, following the beam from the flashlight. With more stiffness in my voice than I’d intended, I said, “Thanks for saving my life.”

“You’re welcome.”

We took more footsteps in silence. I tried to match Tristan’s quick pace without tripping on any rocks or tree roots. “So how did you find me?”

“When I reached the inn, I asked the innkeeper’s wife where you were. She didn’t know, but said you’d questioned her about the location of the cyclops’s caves.

After that, it was just a matter of hurrying as fast as I could to get things ready, cursing a lot, finding your horse and your sword along the way—did I mention cursing a lot? And then I followed the sound of your voice.”

“What did you squirt into his eye? Acid?” He shook his head. “Acid is hard to come by in the Middle Ages. It was actually watered-down shampoo. I’d 282/431

forgotten how much it can sting your eyes until you brought it here.”

So that’s what he’d been holding. My Pantene bottle.

“You mean you shampooed the cyclops to death?” The shock of the evening had taken its toll on me and I laughed out loud. “Well, that should make for an interesting story to tell at the king’s table: Tristan and the Shampoo Bottle of Death.”

He grinned, but didn’t look at me. “Don’t make me laugh. I’m still mad at you.”

“I know you are, Tristan. You’ve been mad at me for the last eight months.”

He didn’t answer me. For the rest of the way to our horses, we didn’t speak at all.

• • •

We rode slowly back to the inn. Tristan rode in front of me, doing his best to light the way with the flashlight while my horse followed his. I spent a lot of time shivering and looking up at the sky, heavy with stars. How in the world could they be the same stars I’d seen back in my world? Everything else had changed.

Once we’d arrived at the inn, the priest rang the church bell to let the villagers know there was important news. Several of the men made a bonfire in the middle 283/431

of the street. Then everyone crowded around for warmth while Tristan told them of my rescue and his daring triumph over the monster. In the story, Tristan said I’d gone to the forest searching for him because I thought he went to fight the cyclops. I had been worried when he hadn’t returned and feared he might be lying wounded somewhere. Which I suppose sounded better than saying I went because I was foolish.

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?”