Daenerys was breaking her fast on a bowl of cold shrimp-and-persimmon soup when Irri brought her a Qartheen gown, an airy confection of ivory samite patterned with seed pearls. "Take it away," she said. "The docks are no place for lady's finery."

If the Milk Men thought her such a savage, she would dress the part for them. She wore faded sandsilk pants and woven grass sandals when she went to the stables. Her small breasts moved freely beneath a painted Dothraki vest, and a curved dagger hung from her medallion belt. Jhiqui had braided her hair in Dothraki fashion and fastened a silver bell to the end of the braid. "I have won no victories," she tried telling her handmaid when the bell tinkled softly.

Jhiqui disagreed. "You burned the maegi in their house of dust and sent their souls to hell."

That was Drogon's victory, not mine, Daenerys wanted to say, but she held her tongue. The Dothraki would esteem her for a few bells in her hair. She chimed as she mounted her silver mare, and again with every stride, but neither the Professor nor her bloodriders mentioned it. To guard her people and dragons in her absence, she chose Rakharo. Jhogo and Aggo would ride with her to the waterfront.

They left the marble palaces and fragrant gardens behind and made their way through a poorer part of the city where modest brick houses turned blind walls to the street. There were fewer horses and camels and no palanquins, but the streets teemed with children, beggars, and skinny dogs the colour of sand. Pale men in dusty linen skirts stood beneath arched doorways to watch them pass. They know who I am, and they do not love me. So Daenerys could tell from the way they looked at her.

The Professor had wanted to tuck her inside her palanquin or his TARDIS on the cart attached behind, safely hidden from view. For her safety, he had told her. Her enemies would be everywhere. Including those she hadn't met yet. But she refused him. If she were to be Queen, she would have to be seen. To smile and wave at her people. And to look over at them, too. Besides, she had reclined too long on satin cushions. At least when she rode her silver mare, she felt like she was getting somewhere.

It was not by choice that she sought the waterfront. She was fleeing again. Her whole life had been one long flight, it seemed. She had begun running in her mother's womb and never once stopped. How often had she and Viserys stolen away in the black of night, a bare step ahead of the Usurper's hired knives? But it was run or die. Xaro had learned that Pyat Pree was gathering the surviving warlocks to work ill on her.

Daenerys had laughed when he told her. "Was it not you who told me warlocks were no more than old soldiers, vainly boasting of forgotten deeds and lost prowess?"

Xaro looked troubled. "And so it was, then. But now? I am less certain. It is said that the glass candles are burning in the house of Urrathon Night-Walker, which have not burned in a hundred years. Ghost grass grows in the Garden of Gehane, phantom tortoises have been seen carrying messages between the windowless houses on Warlock's Way, and all the rats in the city are chewing off their tails. The wife of Mathos Mallarawan, who once mocked a warlock's drab moth-eaten robe, has gone mad and will wear no clothes at all. Even fresh-washed silks make her feel as though a thousand insects were crawling on her skin. And Blind Sybassion, the Eater of Eyes, can see again, or so his slaves do swear. A man must wonder." He sighed. "These are strange times in Qarth. And strange times are bad for trade. It grieves me to say so, yet it might be best if you left Qarth entirely and sooner rather than later." Xaro stroked her fingers reassuringly. "You need not go alone, though. You have seen dark visions in the Palace of Dust, but Xaro has dreamed brighter dreams. I see you happily abed, with our child at your breast. Sail with me around the Jade Sea, and we can make it so! It is not too late. Give me a son, my sweet song of joy!"

Give you a dragon, you mean. "I will not wed you, Xaro."

His face had grown cold at that. "Then go."

"But where?"

"Somewhere far from here."

Well, perhaps it was time. The people of her khalasar had welcomed the chance to recover from the ravages of the red waste, but now that they were plump and rested again, they began to grow unruly. The Dothraki were not accustomed to staying long in one place. They were a warrior people, not made for cities. Perhaps she had lingered in Qarth too long, seduced by its comforts and beauties. It was a city that always promised more than it would give you, it seemed to her, and her welcome here had turned sour since the House of the Undying had collapsed in a great gout of smoke and flame. Overnight the Qartheen had come to remember that dragons were dangerous. No longer did they vie with each other to give her gifts. Instead, the Tourmaline Brotherhood had called openly for her expulsion and the Ancient Guild of Spicers for her death. It was all Xaro could do to keep the Thirteen from joining them.

But she wondered where she would go. Before she banished him and Rumplestiltskin had sent him somewhere far away, Ser Jorah Mormont had told her to journey farther east. Somewhere east where her enemies in the Seven Kingdoms would not find her. Her bloodriders would sooner have returned to the great grass sea, even if it meant braving the red waste again. Daenerys had toyed with settling in Vaes Tolorro until her dragons grew great and strong. But her heart was full of doubts. Each of these felt wrong, somehow . . . and even when she decided where to go, the question of how she would get there remained troublesome.

The Professor had told her maybe she had gone further east enough, and perhaps it was time to head back west. Towards the Seven Kingdoms. But, if she did, she didn't have much of an army to fight for her. Or to protect her even. And her dragons were still too small and too young to fight. She had told the Time Lord that she would risk her life by going west. But he had reassured her that he would protect her. Maybe she should take him up on his offer? And see how much his word was worth?

She knew Xaro Xhoan Daxos would be no help to her. Not now. For all his professions of devotion, he was playing his own game, not unlike Pyat Pree. The night he asked her to leave, Daenerys had begged one last favour of him. "An army, is it?" Xaro asked. "A kettle of gold? A galley, perhaps?"

Daenerys blushed. She hated begging. "A ship, yes."

Xaro's eyes had glittered as brightly as the jewels in his nose. "I am a trader, Khaleesi. So perhaps we should speak no more of giving but rather of trade. For one of your dragons, you shall have ten of the finest ships in my fleet. You need only say that one sweet word."

"No," she said.

"Alas," Xaro sobbed, "that was not the word I meant."

"Would you ask a mother to sell one of her children?"

"Whyever not? They can always make more. Mothers sell their children every day."

"Not the Mother of Dragons."

"Not even for twenty ships?"

"Not for a hundred."

His mouth curled downward. "I do not have a hundred. But you have three dragons. Grant me one for all my kindnesses. You will still have two and thirty ships as well."

Thirty ships would be enough to land a small army on the shore of Westeros. But I do not have a small army. "How many ships do you own, Xaro?"

"Eighty-three, if one does not count my pleasure barge."

"And your colleagues in the Thirteen?"

"Among us all, perhaps a thousand."

"And the Spicers and the Tourmaline Brotherhood?"

"Their trifling fleets are of no account."

"Even so," she said, "tell me."

"Twelve or thirteen hundred for the Spicers. No more than eight hundred for the Brotherhood."

"And the Asshai'i, the Braavosi, the Summer Islanders, the Ibbenese, and all the other peoples who sail the great salt sea, how many ships do they have? All together?"

"Many and more," he said irritably. "What does this matter?"

"I am trying to set a price on one of the three living dragons in the world." Daenerys smiled at him sweetly. "It seems to me that one-third of all the ships in the world would be fair."

Xaro's tears ran down his cheeks on either side of his jewel-encrusted nose. "Did I not warn you not to enter the Palace of Dust? This is the very thing I feared. The whispers of the warlocks have made you as mad as Mallarawan's wife. A third of all the ships in the world? Pah. Pah, I say. Pah."

Daenerys had not seen him since. His seneschal brought her messages, each cooler than the last. She must quit his house. He was done feeding her and her people. He demanded the return of his gifts, which she had accepted in bad faith. Her only consolation was that she'd had the great sense not to marry him.

The warlocks whispered many things to her. She would have to light her own fires to show her the way, and she will have her own mounts. But there was one that troubled her the most. She would be faced with treasons. Not just once, but many times seeing as it was plural. The first traitor must surely be Mirri Maz Duur, who murdered Khal Drogo and their unborn son to avenge her people. The second treason must surely be Ser Jorah Mormont, who had been selling her secrets and movements to the Usurper. That was only two. Would there be more? She dreaded thinking about it.

As they passed through a district given over to gloomy stone warehouses, the streets grew emptier. Aggo went before her and Jhogo behind, leaving only the Professor at her side. The bells attached to her long platinum blonde hair rang softly, and Daenerys found her thoughts returning to the Palace of Dust once more, just as a tongue returns to a space left by a missing tooth.

Child of three, they had called her. Daughter of death, slayer of lies and bride of fire. And then there was what she had heard from the father of the baby. "The dragon has three heads," she said aloud. Then, she turned to the Professor, who was riding beside her. "Do you know what that means?"

"Your house," the Professor began. "It has a sigil of a three-headed dragon." Daenerys gave him a small look and smiled softly, impressed at his knowledge. "I do my research. Plus, I remember what Rumplestiltskin told us," he added.

Daenerys nodded. The friend of the Professor. He told them of a vision where a three-headed dragon led a united army into battle against some darkness. "I know that. But there are no three-headed dragons."

"But metaphorically, there are. Three hundred years ago, there were three House Targaryen warriors fighting to conquer the Seven Kingdoms."

Daenerys nodded again. "Aegon and his sister-wives," she said. "Aegon, Visenya and Rhaenys. I am descended from Aegon and Rhaenys through their son Aenys and their grandson Jaehaerys."

The Professor frowned slightly. "Didn't you say to me once that Xaro told you blue lips speak only lies? These warlocks may have been manipulating the situation to gain what you have. If they're like the darkness I know, they would be adept at manipulating and telling lies."

"Perhaps," Daenerys thoughtfully said. "Yet the things I saw . . ."

The Professor nodded. "A blue flower growing from an ice wall, a banquet of blood with a wolf's head on a human body, a cheering crowd celebrating a man and woman. Possibly they were snippets of the future—small glimpses at what is to come. But it complicates everything when you are allowed a glimpse of the future through prophetic means. Having prophetic visions of the future can be a terrible price. The future is a great puzzle because time itself is always in flux. There are moments when anything can happen. Moments where anything can happen, and there are a million different outcomes. But there are also fixed events. Events that must always happen, no matter what. And if you try to change them, then time fights back."

"But Rumplestiltskin can see the future, can't he? He had that vision of a three-headed dragon …" Daenerys was silent. Another prophecy of a three-headed dragon. "A three-headed dragon leading a united army. I said that it must have been me. And when I was in the House of the Undying, I saw someone who looked like Viserys, my brother. He said his son was the Prince that was Promised, and his song was of Ice and Fire. He then said the dragon must have three heads."

"Someone that looked like your brother?" the Professor asked. "Maybe this prophecy is a Targaryen one? That dagger that Rumplestiltskin found, maybe it belonged to your family?"

"Maybe." Long ago, when they still ruled the Seven Kingdoms. And maybe that man she saw that looked like her brother Viserys was Rhaegar. However, she didn't know for sure. She never knew him. He had died before she was born. Daenerys had gone to the warlocks, hoping for answers, but instead, they left her with hundreds of new questions.

By then, there were people in the streets once more. "Make way," Aggo shouted while Jhogo sniffed at the air suspiciously. "I smell it, Khaleesi," he called. "The poison water." The Dothraki distrusted the sea, and all that moved upon it. Water that a horse could not drink was water they wanted no part of. They will learn, Daenerys resolved. I braved their sea with Khal Drogo. Now they can brave mine.

Qarth was one of the world's great ports. Its excellent sheltered harbour was a riot of colour, clangour, and strange smells. Winesinks, warehouses, and gaming dens lined the streets, cheek by jowl with cheap brothels and the temples of peculiar gods. Cutpurses, cutthroats, spellsellers, and moneychangers mingled with every crowd. The waterfront was one great marketplace where the buying and selling went on all day and all night, and goods might be had for a fraction of what they cost at the bazaar if a man did not ask where they came from. Wizened older women bent like hunchbacks sold flavoured waters and goat's milk from glazed ceramic jugs strapped to their shoulders. Seamen from half a hundred nations wandered amongst the stalls, drinking spiced liquors and trading jokes in queer-sounding tongues. The air smelled of salt, frying fish, hot tar and honey, incense and oil, and sperm.

Aggo gave an urchin a copper for a skewer of honey-roasted mice and nibbled them as he rode. Jhogo bought a handful of fat white cherries. Elsewhere they saw beautiful bronze daggers for sale, dried squids and carved onyx, a potent magical elixir made of virgin's milk and shade of the evening, and even dragon eggs which looked suspiciously like painted rocks.

As they passed the long stone quays reserved for the ships of the Thirteen, she saw chests of saffron, frankincense, and pepper being off-loaded from Xaro's ornate Vermillion Kiss. Beside her, casks of wine, bales of sourleaf, and pallets of striped hides were being trundled up the gangplank onto the Bride in Azure to sail on the evening tide. Farther along, a crowd had gathered around the Spicer galley Sunblaze to bid on slaves. It was well known that the cheapest place to buy a slave was right off the ship, and the banners floating from her masts proclaimed that the Sunblaze had just arrived from Astapor on Slaver's Bay.

Daenerys would get no help from the Thirteen, the Tourmaline Brotherhood, or the Ancient Guild of Spicers. She rode her silver past several miles of their quays, docks, and storehouses, all the way out to the far end of the horseshoe-shaped harbour where the ships from the Summer Islands, Westeros, and the Nine Free Cities were permitted to dock.

She dismounted beside a gaming pit where a basilisk was tearing a big red dog to pieces amidst a shouting ring of sailors. "Aggo, Jhogo, you will guard the horses while the Professor and I speak to the captains."

"As you say, Khaleesi. We will watch you as you go."

It was good to hear men speaking Valyrian again, and even the Common Tongue, Daenerys thought as they approached the first ship. Sailors, dockworkers, and merchants alike gave way before her, not knowing what to make of this slim young girl with silver-gold hair dressed in the Dothraki fashion and walked with a man dressed in odd clothes at her side. Despite the day's heat, the Professor wore his long brown tweed overcoat over a brown vest and off-white shirt.

"You require passage for a hundred Dothraki, all their horses, yourself and this knight, and three dragons?" said the captain of the significant cog Ardent Friend before he walked away laughing. When she told a Lyseni on the Trumpeteer that she was Daenerys Stormborn, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, he gave her a deadface look and said, "Aye, and I'm Lord Tywin Lannister and shit gold every night." The cargomaster of the Myrish galley Silken Spirit opined that dragons were too dangerous at sea, where any stray breath of flame might set the rigging afire. The owner of Lord Faro's Belly would risk dragons, but not Dothraki. "I'll have no such godless savages in my Belly, I'll not." The two brothers who captained the sister ships Quicksilver and Greyhound seemed sympathetic and invited them into the cabin for a glass of Arbor red. They were so courteous that Daenerys was hopeful for a time, but in the end, the price they asked was far beyond her means and might have been beyond Xaro's. Pinchbottom Petto and Sloe-Eyed Maid were too small for her needs, Bravo was bound for the Jade Sea, and Magister Manolo scarce looked seaworthy.

As they made their way toward the next quay, the Professor laid a hand against the small of her back. He leaned into her. "I think we're being followed," he warned, then noticed that she was going to turn her head back. "No. Don't look. Don't draw attention to them." They had to look discreetly.

The Professor looked around until he saw a brass-seller's booth. The reflective objects would do nicely. He guided her to the booth. "Stunning, isn't it?" he asked with a smile.

Daenerys nodded. She could see her face in it. But when the Professor picked it up and angled it to the right, she could see what was behind them. The person that the Professor said was following them. "I see an older man with a white beard draped in a green cloak. Is that who …"

The Professor nodded. "Yes. They've been following us for the past few ships."

The ripples in the brass stretched the stranger queerly, making him seem squat and broad. "A most excellent brass, great lady," the merchant exclaimed. "Bright as the sun! And for the Mother of Dragons, only thirty honours."

The platter was worth at most three. "Where are my guards?" Daenerys declared. "This man is trying to rob me!" Then, for the Time Lord beside her, she lowered her voice and spoke in the Common Tongue. "They may not mean me ill. Men have looked at women since time began. Perhaps it is no more than that."

The brass-seller ignored their whispers. "Thirty? Did I say thirty? Such a fool I am. The price is twenty honours."

"All the brass in this booth is not worth twenty honours," Daenerys told him as she studied the reflection. The older man had the look of Westeros about him. The Usurper offered a lordship to the man who kills me, and he is far from home. Or could he be a creature of the warlocks, meant to take me unawares?

"Ten, Khaleesi, because you are so lovely. Use it for a looking glass. Only brass this fine could capture such beauty."

"It might serve to carry nightsoil. If you threw it away, I might pick it up, so long as I did not need to stoop. But pay for it?" Daenerys shoved the platter back into his hands. "Worms have crawled up your nose and eaten your wits."

"Eight honours," he cried. "My wives will beat me and call me a fool, but I am a helpless child in your hands. Come, eight, that is less than it is worth."

"What do I need with dull brass when Xaro Xhoan Daxos feeds me off plates of gold?" As she turned to walk off, Daenerys let her glance better look over the stranger. The older man with the traveller's cloak of undyed wool. He still wore his hood over his head, so she couldn't exactly see who it was other than a neatly trimmed beard of white hair. He leaned his weight on a hardwood staff as tall as he was. Only fools would stare so openly if they meant me harm. All the same, it might be prudent to head back toward Jhogo and Aggo. "The old man does not wear a sword," she said to the Professor in the Common Tongue as she drew him away.

The brass merchant came hopping after them. "Five honours, for five, it is yours. It was meant for you."

"True. But he may have weapons concealed under his cloak," the Professor warned.

"Four! I know you want it!" The merchant danced in front of them, scampering backwards as he thrust the platter at their faces.

"Does he follow?"

"Lift that a little higher," the Professor ordered the merchant. "Yes. He pretends to linger at a potter's stall. But his attention is on us."

"Two honours! Two! Two!" The merchant was panting heavily from the effort of running backwards.

"Pay him before he kills himself," Daenerys told the Professor, wondering what she would do with a vast brass platter. She turned back as he reached for his coins, intending to put an end to this mummer's farce. The blood of the dragon would not be herded through the bazaar by an older man.

A Qartheen stepped into her path. "Mother of Dragons, for you." He knelt and thrust a jewel box into her face.

Daenerys took it almost by reflex. The box was carved wood, and its mother-of-pearl lid was inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. "You are too generous." She opened it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. This will help pay for our passage. As she reached inside the box, the man said, "I am so sorry," but she hardly heard.

The scarab unfolded with a hiss.

Daenerys caught a glimpse of a malign black face, almost human, and an arched tail dripping venom . . . and then the box flew from her hand in pieces, turning end over end. Sudden pain twisted her fingers. As she cried out and clutched her hand, the brass merchant let out a shriek, a woman screamed, and suddenly the Qartheen were shouting and pushing each other aside. The Professor slammed past her, and Daenerys stumbled to the ground. She heard the hiss again, and she looked up. The scarab darted towards her, and she crawled back.

The older man darted forward, taking a dagger from behind his cloak and stabbing the scarab in its middle. Lifting his dagger with the scarab still on its blade, he looked at the poisonous creature, then over at the man who had given it to Daenerys. He could make out the man's blue lips.

The man raced towards him, but he turned around and jumped into the water. The older man stopped at the dock's edge, seeing if he could find where the man had gone. But he was gone.

"The Warlocks …" breathed Daenerys, letting the Professor help her up.

The Professor nodded before he turned his attention to the older man who had saved Daenerys. Daenerys did too, and she approached him. "I owe you my life, ser."

The older man lifted his hood, revealing more of his face. "The honour is mine, my Queen."

The Professor stepped up. "How do you know her?"

The older man nodded, and he approached the two. "I have been searching for you, Daenerys Stormborn, to ask for your forgiveness. I was sworn to protect your family, but I failed them." He knelt before them. "I am Barristan Selmy, Kingsguard to your father. Allow me to join your Queensguard, and I will not fail you again."

Daenerys looked at Barristan Selmy. "Rise, Ser Barristan," she said, and the old knight got up. She had heard tales of Barristan Selmy from her brother. But he said that he went on to serve Robert Baratheon. "What are you doing out here?" she asked. "How did you find me?"

Barristan looked over at her. "I was dismissed from the Kingsguard by the new king, Joffrey. He told me I was too old to fight for him. But fighting and protecting is all that I know. Then, I met this man who filled me in on what you had been doing. He gave me a ship to bring you home to Westeros." He gestured to a grand wooden ship with three masts of sails. "He told me you needed ships and an army. He said I was the right person to bring you back home."

"Who was this man?" the Professor asked.

"I don't know. He kept his hood up. But he said it was time the Seven Kingdoms had their rightful Queen on the Iron Throne. And I agree. The Seven Kingdoms need a strong ruler to unite them, now more than ever. And with me by your side, my Queen, I promise to help you and get you what you deserve."