“The next time you fail me will be the last time you fail me,” she warns. Before he goes, she delivers the news that Jaime was caught trying to cross their lines, making it seem like he hasn’t abandoned Cersei, after all. Just before she gives Grey Worm the order to sack the city, Tyrion begs for her to back off if she hears bells: That means the city’s citizens are surrendering. In the throne room at Dragonstone, Tyrion argues that the people of King’s Landing are as innocent as the slaves in Meereen she liberated. “Is that all I am to you? Your queen?” she says, all sultry-like, and they kiss for a minute before it ends much the same way their tonsil hockey session ended last episode. You will always be my queen,” he counters. I only have fear,” she says, but Jon demurs. “Far more people in Westeros love you than love me. When they’re alone later, Dany sadly tells Jon that Sansa killed Varys just as much as she did, and cited the terrible incident as the reason she didn’t want anyone to know about who he really is. (Read Varys’ obituary here, and then find out why portrayer Conleth Hill didn’t have a lot of love for this season.) After the dragon barbecues Varys, Jon looks at his queen like he’s never seen her before. There is no malice in her voice in fact, as she utters “Dracarys” to Drogon, who’s waiting behind her, she might as well have been ordering that herbal tea HBO joked about last episode. Then Daenerys runs through roughly half the litany of her name and sentences him to death. He merely says he hopes he was wrong about what will come to pass. “It was me,” Tyrion says, indicating he sold him out, and Tyrion doesn’t look surprised. Daenerys and Jon are there, as is Tyrion. Grey Worm opens the door to the spider’s quarters, and soon he’s being marched under armed guard down to the beach below the castle. That night, Varys can hear the boots marching toward his door as he burns what he wrote and then takes off a ring. “It doesn’t matter now,” he says, a line she parrots. Tyrion says that he made a mistake, but it’ll all be OK. And what dog does Sansa have in this fight, again? “She trusted you to spread secrets that would destroy your own queen, and you did not let her down,” Dany says quietly, looking a bit unhinged, with messy hair and dark shadows under her eyes. He makes the case for why everyone who knows Aegon’s real deal needed to know, but she points out that Tyrion should have come to her first. “Jon Snow.” Tyrion corrects her: “Varys.” She intuits that Varys knows the truth about Jon, and that Tyrion told him. “Someone has betrayed me,” she answers flatly.
“There’s something you need to know,” he starts.
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Tyrion then finds Daenerys in the war room, staring out into the middle distance. “You will rule wisely and well, while she -” Varys starts, but Jon stops him: “ She is my queen.” I never have,” Jon says, clearly upset by the prospect. Varys says he only wants the right ruler on the Iron Throne, and he’s certain that Jon is the one. “We all know what she’s about to do,” the eunuch says, and Jon parrots the “she’s our queen” line. Varys meets him and informs him that Daenerys hasn’t seen anyone, left her chambers or eaten anything since Missandei’s death. Outside, Tyrion watches from on high while Jon arrives at Dragonstone via boat. He agrees they probably are, then reminds her of their motto: “The greater the risk, the greater the reward.” Then he sends her back to the kitchen. He’s interrupted by a young girl, one of his sparrows, who reports that “she” won’t eat and that “her” soldiers are watching her. HOUSE TARGARYEN | We open on Varys writing down the story of Jon’s true parentage and identity as Aegon Targaryen. Read on for the highlights of “The Bells.”