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Chapter Twenty-Five What a perfectly normal conversational gambit

The village bonfire was in the middle of the square, with a few dozen villagers ranged around it.

The golden flames must have

been more powerful than the castle bonfires, though, because Isobelle could feel the heat on her skin long before they reached

it.

She matched her pace with Gwen’s as they approached, and found herself twisting her hands around her borrowed skirts.

She

released her grip and tried to smooth out the wrinkles with sweaty palms.

Just now, above the smithy, Gwen’s fingers had struck a spark, and Isobelle had been the waiting kindling.

She had stood there

as the flames started to creep along her limbs and embers tingled beneath her skin, and if those louts outside hadn’t broken

into laughter, hadn’t thrown a bucket of cold water over the pair of them.

..

With a wrench of effort, she directed her attention to her surroundings, though all she wanted to do was linger in the moment

when Gwen had slowly unlaced her dress.

Rapidly calculating all the variables in a new social situation was one of Isobelle’s strong suits, and she distractedly took

in the dancers, the musicians, the families eating and drinking, before noticing the two people at the center of the crowd’s

attention.

One was a man playing a handheld drum, his fingers rapping out a rhythm so fast the firelight rendered them a blur.

He shifted the beat and tempo without warning—and his eyes were on the other figure, a young woman who was circling the fire, dancing.

The girl was uncommonly lovely, with long dark auburn hair down her back, left to sway unbound around her hips, her skin gleaming

with a faint sheen of perspiration.

Every time the rhythm shifted, so too did her steps—she was matching him, challenging

him.

It was a sort of duel, she realized.

The drum beat fast then slow in compelling syncopation, and Isobelle felt her own

heartbeat drumming in time with it.

She jumped when Gwen laid a hand on her arm, startling her free of her trance.

Gwen guided her in to join the crowd at the

edges of the firelight.

“You have dancers too, I see,” Isobelle murmured as the girl executed a spin.

There , she congratulated herself.

What a perfectly normal conversational gambit.

Well done.

“I was hoping we wouldn’t miss her,” Gwen admitted, and there was a note in her voice that prompted Isobelle to wrench her

eyes from the dancer to study her champion.

It was hard to tell whether it was the firelight or whether Gwen’s cheeks were

also pinker than usual.

“I, uh—” She paused, hesitating.

Isobelle’s heart threw in an extra beat, sensing something important was happening.

“Yes?”

“I used to have such a crush on her,” Gwen murmured, eyes locked on the dancer.

She most determinedly did not look at Isobelle to check on her reaction.

Isobelle’s breath caught, and for a moment she couldn’t remember how to make herself draw it in, so the pressure built behind her ribs as her heart tried to push its way out.

She was pinned in place, gazing at Gwen’s silhouette and blinking slowly as the silence drew out between them.

As if reflecting the way Isobelle’s mind was unravelling this evening, the shifting beat began to lose its cohesion, the dancer

to miss a step here or a spin there—and the duel fell apart to the sound of cheers and applause, and with no indication who

had won.

The drummer shook out his aching hand, and the dancer let herself fall against the crowd, laughing, and Isobelle made herself

lift her hands to clap alongside everybody else.

Gwen applauded enthusiastically, still determinedly not looking at her companion.

Isobelle knew she had to say something.

Gwen had just shown her a secret piece of herself, and.

.. had she been asking if

Isobelle shared that secret, too?

Surely not.

“Gwen,” she found herself saying, stumbling into the conversation before she was ready—before the door Gwen had nudged open

between them slammed shut.

“Gwen!” The voice belonged to a large, broad-shouldered young man who came hurrying up to Gwen and Isobelle, and the spell

was broken.

In that moment, Isobelle could quite cheerfully have fed that huge boy to a dragon, and offered the beast his hat for dessert.

The newcomer was not bad looking to her practiced eye, with the potential for handsome one day.

He had the sort of broad,

earnest face that suggested he was still growing into his size and strength.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be back for the bonfire.”

“Oh, hi, Theo,” Gwen said, employing what Isobelle immediately recognized as a Maintaining the Gap voice.

There was a distance between these two that Theo wished to close, and Gwen was maintaining by shuffling away.

She took a step back now, angling her body to include Isobelle in the conversation.

Good move, Gwen. Strength in numbers, when fending them off.

“Is-zie. Izzie.” Gwen recovered from the stumble quite well.

“This is Theo. He’s helping out my father while I’m completing

my internship. Theo, Izzie’s a maid from the castle.”

“Pleasure,” said Isobelle, carefully moderating her smile and unleashing about a seven out of ten on him, just to see what

would happen.

It distracted him for a moment, but then he blinked free of her and turned his attention back to Gwen, sending

a flash of irritation through Isobelle.

Why had she done that?

Gwen clearly didn’t want him, so why was she trying to show Gwen he wasn’t worthy of her?

Isobelle did not believe in lying unless it was strictly necessary, and she tried above all to be honest with herself.

And so there was only one conclusion: despite Gwen’s clear

lack of interest in Theo’s charms, Isobelle was nonetheless jealous of him.

She probed this realization in the same way one

probes a loose tooth, poking and prodding for a reaction.

“The dancing’s almost done,” Theo was saying.

“But I’m sure we could squeeze one more song out of them.”

Gwen tensed.

“I have my friend here, and...”

Theo’s face fell, and Isobelle had to give him credit—his earnest features were perfectly suited to looking utterly crestfallen.

“I could give you an update on how things are going at the forge,” he offered.

“Tell you how your father’s getting on.”

Isobelle eyed the boy, grudgingly awarding him a point on her mental scoreboard.

Gwen muttered something under her breath and stepped forward.

“Two minutes,” she promised Isobelle.

“By all means, dance!” said Isobelle cheerily, and clamped her jaw shut before she managed to say something like Dance all night, you make a lovely couple!

Or, even worse: No—stay, and dance with me instead.

Fortunately, before any of those words could escape, Gwen and Theo were gone.

“Poor lad,” drawled a dry, amused voice behind Isobelle.

She desperately wanted to pretend the voice wasn’t talking about Theo, and wasn’t talking to her.

She needed space to steady

herself, to try to calm her whirling head, which was reeling like a punch-drunk boxer from a succession of blows.

“Though hardly his fault,” the voice continued.

Slowly, Isobelle turned.

The woman standing in the shadows was older than her, but not old enough to have earned the gray and white streaks through

her sable hair.

They gave her the air of a striped tabby cat, and the slow blink of her eyes as she took Isobelle in did nothing

to dispel that image.

Her dress was plain, well mended and cared for, and she wore a wide belt holding up several pockets

and pouches.

If everything about her didn’t scream hedge witch!

, possibly while waving some of those streamers the cheerleaders at the tournament were using, then the wicker charm dangling

from the leather thong around her neck certainly would have gotten the job done.

Isobelle reacted on instinct, bobbing a polite curtsy—not too deep, but flawless in execution.

On the upper end of the I-very-much-respect-hedge-witches

spectrum.

She threw in a smile and a dimple for good measure.

Sweet, harmless maid from the castle.

That’s me!

The woman’s brows rose—Isobelle had a feeling she’d just been thoroughly examined and completely understood—but when she laughed, the sound wasn’t unkind.

“Well, aren’t you charming? And you’re new.” She inclined her head in a hint of a bow, an oddly formal response to the curtsy.

“Izzie,” Isobelle offered.

“I’m from the castle. Gwen told me she’d show me what a real celebration looked like.”

“Delia,” the woman offered.

“And the real celebration won’t start until later this evening. The circle will take place by the river—there’s an old oak. You’ll find

it if you follow the creek out past the fields.”

“The circle?” Isobelle blinked at her foolishly before understanding arrived.

“Oh! I’m—I’m afraid I’m no witch.”

Delia studied her for a moment that went on a beat too long, her lips curving into a faint smile.

“Are you not?”

“I’m—” Why was Isobelle even hesitating?

It wasn’t the sort of thing you missed about yourself, any more than you missed that

you were seven feet tall, or a knight in shining armor, or that you were attracted to.

.. “No,” she said, her tone somewhere

between apologetic and confused.

“Mmm,” Delia said eventually.

“Forgive my mistake, in that case. How are you enjoying the tournament?” the hedge witch asked,

and Isobelle suddenly knew what it felt like to be a mouse played with by a cat.

Did Delia know things , or did she just cultivate an air that made it feel as though she did?

“It’s very loud when the knights crash together,” she replied.

“None of it makes much sense to me.”

“You should ask our Gwen about it,” Delia replied.

Bat, bat, went her paws.

Isobelle-mouse squeaked somewhere inside.

“She could explain it to you. And here she comes.”

Isobelle was sure she whipped around far too fast, and sure enough, there was Gwen bearing down on them.

Without thinking,

she extended her hand, and Gwen simply took hold of it, curling her warm fingers around Isobelle’s as she reached her side.

“I see Delia found you,” she said, but with a warmth that suggested she was quite pleased to see the hedge witch.

“I got away

from Theo by pointing out that old Bertin is setting up over on his crate. It’s dragon bonfire night. I wanted Izzie to hear

a real story. She’s only ever heard the nobility’s versions.”

Isobelle blinked.

“Your stories are different from those told up at the castle?”

“Ours are true,” Delia replied.

“Go, listen. Learn. I have my own business to attend to this evening.” She inclined her head

again in one of those almost-bows, and Isobelle couldn’t help feeling that it was directed at her.

“Gwen, it is good to see

you are well. Izzie, I feel certain our paths will cross again.”

There was a great deal for Isobelle to consider as they walked away from the hedge witch, but one look at Gwen’s expression

distracted her from her own issues.

Though her tone had been easy enough, there was a hint of a line between her brows that

Isobelle immediately wished to smooth away.

“Did he step on your toes?” she asked, giving Gwen’s hand a daring squeeze.

“Mmm?” Gwen glanced across at her, and then let out a slow breath.

Isobelle tried to ignore the little leap her heart gave,

realizing that squeeze had eased Gwen’s tense expression.

“Not the way you mean, no. There’s nothing wrong with Theo.”

“Oh my. Nothing wrong with him? Now there’s some high praise.”

Gwen led her through the crowd before she replied, and found them a place together on a log that had been rolled up to the

edge of the circle around the fire.

Isobelle made a brief and fruitless attempt to dust the log off enough to keep her borrowed

skirts clean, then conceded.

Once they were seated side by side, Gwen turned her head to speak quietly to Isobelle once more.

“It’s true. There’s nothing

wrong with Theo. He’s from a family a couple of villages over. His father’s the blacksmith in Nether Foxholm. His older brother

will inherit the business.”

“Ah,” said Isobelle slowly, feeling many feelings at once.

“And perhaps Theo will work for his brother. But perhaps he might

also marry the daughter of a blacksmith who lacks a male heir.”

Gwen grimaced in reply.

“He’s a nice boy. I think he’d be kind to me.”

“That’s almost as bad as nothing wrong with him ,” Isobelle observed.

“Oh, Gwen. I’m not Hilde, not swept up in the romance of finding a perfect match. I know nobody gets

a fairy-tale ending. But are we really meant to...” She trailed off, for what else was there to say?

Gwen was doing everything she could to save her from the Sir Ralphs of the world, who’d treat her like a prize without a voice

of her own.

To save her even from the Orsons, who would, like Theo, be kind .

Gwen was putting everything on the line to protect Isobelle from those fates, so she could write her own happy ending one

day—whatever it might be.

But what would become of Gwen’s ending?

Before Isobelle could begin to answer that question, a ripple went through the crowd.

Like flowers toward the sun, everybody

turned toward an old man who was rising to take his place by the fire.

He was ancient, with the sort of wiry build that looked

like he could live forever, and a face made craggy by wrinkles.

He walked all the way up to the fire, studying it in silence as his audience watched.

It was only when he turned to make his

way back that Isobelle saw one side of his face was a mass of scars.

“The thing about your stories up at the castle,” Gwen whispered in Isobelle’s ear, setting her skin prickling, “is that they’re

all about knights fighting the big dragons. The ones who were foolish enough—or enormous enough—to attack the castles. Our

stories are about what happened after. Who had to deal with the rest of dragonkind in the generations that followed.”

Her words were enough to yank Isobelle out of her contemplation of the sensitivity of her earlobes.

“The rest of them?”

A young man carried over a crate for Bertin—for this must be he—and the old man eased down to sit on it with a groan.

He made

a great show of reluctance, but when he spoke, his tone and cadence were those of a seasoned storyteller.

“I suppose, what with it being dragon bonfire night, you’ll be wanting to hear about the night I got this,” he began, tapping

gently on the scarring that knotted its way down the side of his face.

Around them the crowd gasped and whispered, and Isobelle gasped too, willingly letting him draw her into the tale and away

from her own thoughts and questions and complications.

“This was, oh, so many years ago my hair was still a glossy black, my limbs as straight and strong as tall pines,” the old man began, straightening as he spoke, recalling that younger version of himself.

“It was harvest time, and the world was golden. But all was not well, for when we went to fetch the woodsman and his family for the harvest feast, we found their house burned away to cinders and all of them gone.”

Isobelle let herself join in on the ripple passing through the crowd with a delightful shiver, and silently resolved that

if she ever came into possession of a dreadful scar, she’d make up an equally thrilling story to go with it.

She let Bertin carry her along as he told of gathering a dozen of the village’s menfolk, the great-grandfathers of those there

tonight.

“And me the youngest,” he said, “a lad of seventeen. Together, we set out into the forest to track the beast.”

His gaze drifted beyond the circle of listeners to the trees that came up to the edge of the village, and Isobelle couldn’t

help twisting in her seat to look, too.

To picture the band setting out together, dwarfed by the trees looming above them.

“Now, dragons are the only creatures in the world that never stop growing,” he continued.

“The older they are, the bigger

they get. The knights of old took out the biggest, the cruelest, the ones who knocked down castles for fun. But the wee ones,

well. They could hide among the trees or deep in their caves and wait ’til they grew before venturing out to pick us off,

one by one.”

Isobelle’s mind gave a funny little shiver as an army of but what ifs and how do you explains tried to make themselves heard, and then sank beneath the tide of Bertin’s mesmerizing voice.

“It was just such a beast we were hunting,” he said.

“About the size of a wagon, to have enough flame to burn down the woodsman’s place and feast on all his family. The first track we followed ended at a cave, all right—full of bears, settling down for their winter sleep. The second, we were sure we had it, but a fox hunt came through, two dozen nobles on horses, with dogs, trampling every sign of it. The third trail led to what we used to call the witch’s cave, though if there was ever a witch there, the dragon must’ve eaten her long ago. There were jagged rocks all around the opening, so it looked like a dragon’s toothy maw, waiting to close on us with a snap .”

The audience jumped at his snap , and a couple of cries went up around the circle, whispers adding to the soft crackling of the fire.

“But before we could decide which one of us would have to brave it,” Bertin continued softly, “the dragon dropped from the

sky, crashing down into the clearing, and lunging for Ranulf Turner. He hadn’t even time to cry out before his head was halfway

down its gullet.”

The twinkle in his eye was gone now, and his voice lower, his gaze set somewhere long ago.

Isobelle lost all sense of where she was as the flames crackled before him, painting him the same hue as the great corroded

bronze beast of his story, a dragon with foul, acrid breath and fire dripping from its mouth.

She cried out and recoiled with

everyone else as one by one, the man’s companions fell, crushed by a whip of its tail or torn apart by its great jaws.

Isobelle dragged her gaze away, glancing at Gwen beside her with a flash of a question, lips parting, though she hardly knew

what she wanted to ask.

Gwen caught her eye, her own face grave—but she squeezed Isobelle’s hand, a comforting gesture.

If Bertin’s story were true, surely someone at the castle would have known of such a tragedy.

Their descendants would remember.

And they’d have spoken of it, wouldn’t they?

“There we were,” Bertin said, his gaze distant.

“Only three of us left. Me, Elgrin, and Old Gregor pinned beneath a log, his

leg broken clean in two.”

A child’s voice piped up, asking exactly what Isobelle was thinking.

“What did you do, Bertin?”

The old man came back to himself and nodded gravely at the little girl who’d spoken.

“We shared a long look, Elgrin and I.

We always knew each other’s minds, and I knew what he planned to do. He took off toward the river, spraying arrows all the

while, to turn the beast his way. At first, I thought he’d failed. Its great gaze held me, froze me in place—I couldn’t remember

who I was or why I was there. I can still remember those great golden eyes, full of malice.”

His voice was dying away now, and Isobelle was leaning forward with everyone else, clutching Gwen’s hand tightly.

“And then one of Elgrin’s arrows pierced its eye, and the spell was broken. I could move, and as it roared and turned to find

him with the eye that could still see, I charged at it with my axe. The beast’s hide was so thick I barely scratched its neck

with my first swing. The great head started back toward me as I swung again. And as I swung a third time, liquid agony spilled

down on my head.”

He turned his face again, allowing the firelight to land on the scarred flesh there, and Isobelle lifted her own hand, touching

the smooth skin of her cheek.

“But the dragon was already dying as he poured the last of his foul flame upon me. My Elgrin dragged me to the river and submerged my wounds, and it was three days before I could raise my face from the cool water without screaming in pain. When I could finally move again, we dragged Gregor back on a stretcher. The only three to return at all.

“No dragon has been seen in these parts between that day and this.

Perhaps the one we slew was the last. But I cannot say

for sure what might still be hiding in the forests or mountains or caves, waiting for the day it will attack once more.

”

The silence stretched after his words ended, broken only by the crackling of the bonfire before him.

And then the old man

straightened up with a clap of his hands.

Released from the spell, the crowd broke into murmurs and shifted where they sat, and Gwen used her hold on Isobelle’s hand

to pull her to her feet.

“Come on,” she said.

“He doesn’t mind questions, as long as he’s not thirsty.”

Isobelle followed, still dizzy with the spell of the story as Gwen hurried over to the barrel and tap, filled a mug of ale,

and pressed it into Isobelle’s hands.

She let Gwen spin her around and point her at Bertin.

“Ah, Gwen, my thanks, girl. I see you’ve found a friend.” The man’s eyes were kind, moving between Gwen’s face and Isobelle’s,

and Isobelle found her cheeks warming in response.

“This is Izzie,” Gwen said, nudging her to hand over the mug.

“She’s a maid up at the castle. Izzie, this is Bertin, our expert

on all things dragon.”

Isobelle bobbed a curtsy automatically, which Bertin accepted with a quirk of his mouth, and offered him the ale.

“They don’t

have stories like yours up at the castle,” she ventured.

“I should say not, young lady. There haven’t been any dragons attacking castles for a hundred years or more. Safe you are,

in a castle.”

“But we don’t even hear of them,” she replied.

“Surely the knights would be pleased to have even a small one to hunt down.”

If they were real.

Which of course they’re not, not anymore.

Except that woman up at the castle bonfire, tonight.

.. Isobelle could still hear the ragged edge to her voice as she shouted the words, like a witch spitting a curse, Remember us when they come for you.

..

Bertin took a long swallow of ale before he replied.

“Knights? Yes, well. Knights indeed. They came into existence to protect

people, that’s for sure. But then dragonslaying became less about fighting a single glorious battle on a field outside a castle,

and more about weeks of slogging through marsh and wood and cold and wet, for creatures with the upper hand in their own element.”

“So they left you to it,” Isobelle concluded, wishing the explanation didn’t make quite so much sense.

“And wished you best

of luck with the small ones, who probably didn’t need a knight to kill them anyway.”

“Well, I couldn’t say,” he replied.

“But I do know that a whole race of creatures doesn’t die out because you kill the ones

making a ruckus. It just means only the clever ones persist.”

Beside her, Gwen spoke gravely.

“Some women came to the castle bonfire tonight to petition Lord Whimsitt for aid, claiming

a dragon attacked their village. Nobody believed them.”

Bertin’s brows went up, but he looked far more thoughtful than disbelieving.

“I’m forced to admit that I didn’t believe them either,” Isobelle murmured.

“I’m used to people not believing,” Bertin replied.

“All I can do is tell what I know. I have my axe, half melted from dragonsfire, but a skeptic could tell me I inherited it from my grandsire who lived when dragons were everywhere. I have my burned face, but perhaps that was a forest fire, or a mishap over the stove.”

Or perhaps , a small voice was saying more and more insistently in Isobelle’s head, it happened exactly the way you say it did.

“My father’s father made weapons for dragonslayers,” Gwen said quietly.

“You’d have to go generations back at the castle to

find someone who could say the same.”

“You think they really could have been out there all this time?” Isobelle heard herself ask.

“And we just never knew? Nobody

ever saw one?”

Gwen shrugged.

“If I watched all my friends attacking castles and getting killed by guys in metal clothes, I’d find somewhere

else to be.”

“The question,” said Bertin, “is where.”

Others moved in to talk to the old man, and Gwen stayed close as the two of them stepped back.

Isobelle had never needed somewhere

quiet to sit down with a strong cup of tea quite so badly in her life.

Between the spell the old man’s tales had cast, the hedge witch’s knowing gaze—which raised questions that she mentally consigned

to her pile of problems for another day—and her startling realizations about Gwen, she was dangerously close to reaching capacity.

Not to mention the fate of the women who’d been arrested up at the castle.

Gently, Gwen’s hand closed around hers once more, and Isobelle let the other girl lead her away.

A soft squeeze told her Gwen

understood and was taking her somewhere quiet.

Of course Gwen understood. She always did.