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Ali could see already that there would be no winning this battle here today.

Unfortunately, she could also see that there was no escaping her fate.

Both Cook and Mistress Nemain were giving her meaningful looks—looks she interpreted to mean that if she ever intended to have anything edible at the table again, she’d best side with them.

Her. Him. Ali knew that it wouldn’t matter whom she sided with, she was doomed to crack her teeth on rocks in her bread.

She sighed, eased Sybil’s sack of sustenance to the floor, then accepted the spoons.

Mistress Nemain was looking at her with so piercing a gaze, and Cook so compelling a one, she began to truly believe she had stumbled into some dreadful dream where potions were brewed in the kitchen and men changed themselves into foul creatures at night to harass unwary travelers.

She took a deep breath, tasted each offering in turn, then shoved the spoons back at the squabblers.

“Needs thyme,” she blurted out, grabbed her sack, and bolted for the passageway.

“Thyme?” Cook echoed.

“Thyme!” exclaimed Mistress Nemain.

Ali looked over her shoulder to see them shaking their heads.

“Daft lad,” they said together.

And, as if Ali hadn’t just taken her life in her hands to humor them, they began their argument again.

“Sage!”

“Nothing!”

That proceeded rapidly to assaults on the other’s character and ability to taste.

Ali left the kitchens whilst no blood had yet been spilt.

Without any hesitation, she ran through the great hall, fled up the steps, down the passageway and came to a skidding halt before the solar door.

“Open up,” she commanded.

The door was flung open, the foodstuffs snatched, and then the door was slammed shut in her face.

Ali stared at the wood in astonishment. Then equal parts of anger and fear swept through her.

“Ungrateful harlots!” she exclaimed, pounding on the door. “Let me in! How dare you leave me out in this accursed place after all I’ve done for you?”

There was no response, not even any words of censure from within the solar.

Ali continued to shout and pound until she realized there was no use.

She took a deep breath, leaned her forehead against the wood, and wondered what she was supposed to do now that her only place of safety had been denied her.

And then she realized, quite suddenly, that she was not alone in the passageway.

She wondered if it might be best to just turn and flee without ascertaining who watched her, but ’twould be her luck to have that soul be Christopher of Blackmour, who could no doubt spell her into some foul malady just as easily to her back as to her face.

So she took a deep breath, then turned to face her doom.

The lady of Blackmour stood there, a smile tugging at her mouth. “My,” she said, “what a tremendous ruckus. And such language from a knight to his lady.”

“Um,” Ali said, then remembered to deepen her voice. “Um,” she tried again, much lower, wondering how she’d sounded whilst she was screaming out her frustration at the door. “It has been, my lady, a very trying morning.”

“So I heard,” Gillian said. She leaned back against the wall and looked at Ali thoughtfully. “What an interesting face you have,” she said finally. “Most delicate, for a man.”

“My bane,” Ali said with a gulp. “I have pretty brothers, as well.”

And then she wondered why she wasn’t struck down immediately for lying.

Her brothers might have been many things, all bloody five of them, but pretty was definitely not on that list. ‘Twas a fortunate thing she’d inherited her mother’s face and not her father’s, else the same thing might have been said of her.

Though at the moment, she could have wished for much uglier features.

“Well,” Gillian said with a smile, “whilst I do feel sorry for your siblings, that doesn’t solve the mystery of your features.”

Why couldn’t these souls here be as blind as those at Maignelay-sur-mer? She’d been in Sybil’s company for over two years and the wench had never looked at her twice. In less than two days at Blackmour, all manner of people had peered at her visage, trying to discover all her secrets.

And now she faced the Dragon’s wife, who likely had sight as clear as his own.

The saints preserve her, she was doomed.

She looked about her for a means of escape, but before she could decide on a direction, she was caught.

“I think it would be most interesting to hear more of your tale,” Gillian said, taking her by the arm. “Perhaps you might enjoy the freedom of the roof after your morning of frustration here at the solar door.”

“But—”

“Have you seen the view from the battlements?”

“Nay—”

“Then you should. I’m Gillian, by the way.”

“Aye,” Ali managed. “I know. I saw you yesterday.”

Gillian drew Ali up the stairs, and Ali found herself with little choice but to allow it. Besides, perhaps the view might provide her with some idea of where she was and a direction in which she might flee.

Should she ever get outside the gates, of course.

“Ah, here we are,” Gillian said, stopping along one wall. “This is where I come when I have things that trouble me.”

Ali supposed there must be an endless list of those kinds of things, beginning and ending with the torments of being wed to the lord of Blackmour.

How was it a woman bore living with a dragon?

And such a dragon as Blackmour! Why, his reputation stretched to Solonge and farther, surely.

The tales of his evil, his cruelty, his very gaze that was rumored to render his foes powerless and enspelled—

Things that troubled the lady Gillian, indeed. Ali could have made the poor woman’s list for her!

“What do you think of the view?” Gillian asked.

Ali suspected that this might be one of the lady’s few pleasures, so who was she not to admire it?

She clutched the rock before her and looked about her carefully.

It wasn’t that she was afeared of heights; she had escaped to her own battlements at Solonge often to avoid the madness below.

But her keep didn’t overlook an ocean that churned with a fierceness to rival the fury of Hell.

She closed her eyes briefly, took a deep breath, then decided that looking down was not something she would do again any time soon. Aye, the countryside, what she could see of it from the Dragon’s nest, was view enough for her.

“Perhaps you too have things that trouble you,” Gillian said quietly.

“Nay, nothing,” Ali responded promptly. “Nothing at all.”

“Not even the girls below? Your lady Sybil? That poor child. She seems powerfully terrified of something.”

Ali looked at Gillian in surprise. “Something? Surely ’tis obvious what.”

“I suppose,” Gillian said with half a smile. “But is it Blackmour that terrifies her, do you think, or just Colin?”

“Both, I’d warrant,” Ali said, realizing only then that she certainly should not be speaking so freely to a woman who, as a lord’s lady, was far above a mere knight in station. She ducked her head and tried to look penitent.

“You would think that if anyone at Blackmour here had reason to be afraid, it would be me, wouldn’t you?” Gillian continued. “After all, I am wed to Blackmour’s lord.”

Ali could only snatch a glance at the lady Gillian and bite her tongue. How was she to agree without offending the woman and her husband both?

“Do I look terrified?”

Ali shook her head. Gillian looked anything but that. Then again, the woman had been here for the saints only knew how long and perhaps had come fully under Blackmour’s spell. How was her opinion in these matters possibly to be trusted?

“Would you care for the tale of how I came here ... um ... I fear I’ve forgotten your name, Sir ...”

“Henri,” Ali supplied. “Sir Henri.”

Gillian looked at her so long and so searchingly, Ali found herself with the intense desire to flee. Unfortunately, Gillian had retaken her grip on Ali’s arm.

“Stay,” she coaxed. “I think you’ll find it much more peaceful here than below.”

And Ali thought just the opposite. “I have duties,” Ali said, attempting to pull her arm free of Gillian’s fingers.

“Those duties can wait, don’t you think? Far better that we have speech together.”

Ali suspected that a year or two in an oubliette would be better for her than a conversation with Gillian of Blackmour. She just knew that if she continued to talk to the woman, she would have no secrets left.

But Gillian had now released her sleeve to hook her arm with Ali’s and there was surely no escaping that unless Ali shook the woman right off the battlements.

She girded up her loins, as it were, and vowed to remain silent, no matter what sorts of nefarious tactics the lady Gillian might use to pry secrets from her.

“Would you believe,” Gillian went on, standing far too close to Ali for her comfort, “that I once thought to escape marriage by disguising myself as a lad?”

Ali choked. She didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help herself. She continued to gasp for breath until Gillian had pounded some of it back into her. And once she could breathe again, Gillian took her arm again, as if she sought to stop Ali from escaping.

“Aye,” she said, “I know. ’Tis difficult to imagine that a man would be so terrifying as to drive a girl to such a pass, but when I heard to whom my father had betrothed me, I could see no other choice.

Christopher of Blackmour?” She shook her head with a dry smile.

“I was convinced that being bound to him would only lead to a life of misery.”

Ali swallowed with difficulty. Aye, she could understand that feeling well enough.

“But that is the way of things, is it not?” Gillian continued. “A girl has no choice in where she goes or with whom she weds. All she can do is either make of her life what she can, or run.”