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Chapter Thirty-Seven You’d be very surprised by what a fancy lady can get done

Two days before the final joust was to occur, Olivia summoned Isobelle and Gwen for a council of war.

Not to discuss what

would happen after the tournament ended—even Olivia could not see that far ahead—but to lay out her plan for helping the villagers

who had come the night of the dragon bonfire, who had been arrested for making a scene.

Olivia herself was far from thrilled with the plan she’d made, but time had run out, with the tournament final looming up

ahead.

She’d drilled both Gwen and Isobelle on every step, until they could repeat it back to her word for word—and now they

were making their way down, down into the twisting corridors beneath the castle.

Under any other circumstances, a secret mission of this sort would have been quite thrilling.

Isobelle was, however—despite carefully cultivated popular opinion—capable of taking things seriously.

And just now, she was

taking the safety of the women imprisoned beneath the castle very seriously indeed.

“Are we clear?” Olivia whispered, as they paused at the midpoint of the servants’ staircase.

“We stay put, and don’t speak to the guards,” Gwen whispered.

“And I, especially, do not try to help you chat them up,” Isobelle added.

“Unless you need my help, that is.”

“No,” Olivia snapped.

“No unless. You stay here until they’re down. We’ll get to the cell and try to locate the key. No heroics,

remember?” Olivia sighed, then muttered, “It will be a miracle if this works. I don’t like bringing you two into it.”

“Well, a miracle is required,” Isobelle said.

“And anyway, we’re all you’ve got.”

“Rarely have I so sorely felt the lack,” Olivia replied glumly.

She was dressed in a simple gray servant’s dress, her hair

braided back neatly, and she held a small basket of freshly baked custard tarts.

Gwen was dressed in the simple black clothes she wore beneath her armor, with small patches of mail at her elbows and knees.

The trousers clung both alarmingly and delightfully to her legs, and to her.

.. above her legs.

..

Isobelle had given careful thought to her own outfit.

Something dark, to blend in with the shadows, but she might only assist

on one jailbreak in her lifetime—she wanted her look to be memorable.

She had settled on a black mourning dress with minimal ruffles.

She had left off the underskirts, which interfered with the

drape a touch, but meant she was able to move more freely, and as they prepared to descend the stairs, she pulled her black

veil down over her face.

“What are you doing?” Olivia whispered, her eyes widening in disbelief.

“I glow in the dark,” Isobelle pointed out, carefully twitching the netting into place.

“Behind this, I am one with the shadows.”

Olivia surrendered and lifted the basket of tarts.

“I will feed these to the guards,” she whispered.

“Once I give the signal, Gwen, you take a look at the lock and search for a key, and Isobelle, you speak to the women. You have two minutes, and then we’re leaving.”

The pair of them followed the maid as she continued down the stairs, halting at her hand signal and letting her walk on alone.

“Who goes?” called a rough male voice.

“Just me again, boys. Anyone for dessert?” Olivia’s singsongy tones paused, and then there was a giggle.

“Not that kind of dessert, Alaric! Cheeky. Look, the cook’s just pulled these out of the oven. Gather round.”

She’d been down here every night for a week, and, like the ravens one of the stableboys trained to join him for breakfast,

the guards had learned to arrive promptly for their treat.

There was a short silence as they ate, and Isobelle risked a peek around the corner, spotting Olivia chatting in a low voice

with a group of four men in castle guard uniforms. As she watched, one of them stepped back, leaning against the wall with

a bewildered expression.

Then he looked down in surprise as his knees gave way, and he slithered down until he was seated.

“What—” one of them began, and then went silent.

Gwen grabbed Isobelle by the waist, pulling her back out of sight.

The touch of her hands created a flutter of sparks that

ran all the way down to Isobelle’s toes, via several interesting stops along the way.

Isobelle caught her breath, but forced

herself to keep her mind on their mission, and not on how viscerally Gwen’s touch had affected her.

Then Olivia appeared, her basket now almost empty.

“They’re out,” she whispered.

“They won’t remember anything about tonight,

much less the tarts. But none of them have the keys on them. Go on, I’ll keep watch here.”

Silently, Isobelle and Gwen went on.

The passages below the castle itself were hewn out of solid rock, and the builders seemed to have gone out of their way to make the place miserable.

Jagged edges were waiting to snag the unsuspecting passerby, and drops of something cold and too slimy to be water fell from the ceiling at unpredictable intervals.

Their footsteps sounded far too loud, echoing off the walls as they made their way past the first few empty cells, the doorways thrown open like big, black mouths waiting to swallow you up.

Then they found a doorway blocked by a huge metal grate, and Isobelle slowed to a halt, squinting through the bars for a glimpse

of anyone inside.

Gwen took a torch from its sconce and handed it to Isobelle.

“Hold this,” she murmured.

“I need light to work with.”

Isobelle angled it obligingly, and Gwen dropped to a crouch to inspect the lock on the doorway—made of metal, it was well

within her wheelhouse.

And making new friends was within Isobelle’s, so she began her appointed task.

“Ladies?” she whispered carefully.

“Are you in there?”

A form appeared from the shadows—a woman all in black, or else so filthy she might as well have been—shielding her eyes from

the flame.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, wise enough to keep to a whisper as well.

“Friends,” Isobelle said simply.

“The guards are asleep, for now. Have any of you seen which guard holds the key, or where

they keep it?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” someone muttered from farther back in the cell.

“Rescue finally arrives, and it’s fancy ladies

playing at being spies.”

Gwen looked up from her work.

“You would be very surprised by what a fancy lady can get done,” she murmured, amusement warming her voice.

“There’s steel under all that gilt.”

“Oh, that’s a lovely thing to say,” Isobelle whispered, flushing.

“You know, so many people think—”

Gwen cut her off gently by taking hold of her hand and giving it a squeeze that said let’s focus on the task at hand, shall we?

and Isobelle gave her a squeeze back to convey that she quite understood, but very much appreciated the compliment.

Gwen

then redirected Isobelle’s hand so the torchlight fell back on the door, which she continued to examine.

“Right,” Isobelle said.

“Keys?”

But the women just shook their heads numbly.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Isobelle asked gently of the woman closest to the bars.

“To you, to your village? Where did

you say you were from?”

“Aberfarthing,” came the soft reply.

“Just outside the village proper, most of us, to the south, toward the new mines. I didn’t

see much, myself—but I heard it.” She gave a bone-deep shudder.

“The roaring, the screams.”

“I saw it,” piped up another voice, farther back in the shadows.

“A great black monster flying over the village just before

the headman’s house exploded in flames.”

Another woman stepped forward.

“Not black,” she argued.

“Sort of brownish green, an awful color, like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Gwen glanced at Isobelle, brow furrowed, obviously thinking the same thing she was: no wonder no one had believed these women

and their tales of dragon attacks.

No two of them were telling the same story.

Isobelle stepped back, leaving Gwen to continue her examination of the cell door, and glanced at Olivia, who was still within sight up the passageway.

“What do you make of this?” she called, keeping her voice low, as the women in the cell debated the sequence of events that had driven them out of their homes.

Olivia was listening with half an ear, her attention partly directed back the way they’d come.

“Eyewitnesses are unreliable

at best,” she said, though her voice was slow and troubled.

“The more traumatic the event, the harder it can be to recall

exactly what you saw. It doesn’t necessarily make them liars.”

Isobelle sighed.

“You could have just said ‘I don’t know,’ Olivia.”

Olivia raised an eyebrow and glanced at her, lips quirking the tiniest bit.

“Come now, Isobelle. You know I know everything.

Keep working here, I’m going to check on our sleeping beauties.”

Isobelle turned her attention back to the women, infusing her voice with the kind of calm confidence she imagined was helpful

when leading armies, and undertaking other great deeds requiring courage and confidence.

“We’re going to get you out of here,”

she told them.

“We’ll keep searching for the key, as long as it takes to—”

“Actually,” Gwen said, interrupting her and lifting her head.

“We don’t need the key.”

“You can pick the lock?” Isobelle asked, leaning in, heart pounding.

“Or break it?”

“I don’t need to. Look at these hinges—simple pegs, relying on the weight of the door to keep it closed. Everyone focuses

on the locks.” Gwen gave a disgusted shake of her head.

“Amateur hour over here.”

Isobelle had to hide a smile.

“Well, why don’t we go find whoever’s in charge, and let them know what they’re doing wrong? Really make sure no one can get out of this place next time.”

Gwen looked up at her and blinked in the torchlight, before a breath of laughter escaped her.

“Point taken. The bottom line

is that these hinges are atrocious. I can get the door off, with a little help—is Olivia still back there?”

Isobelle handed Gwen the torch and went scurrying up the disgusting corridor as quickly as she dared, regretting her choice

of slippers.

She found her maid going through the guards’ pockets, but at a glance from Isobelle, she straightened up.

“Just checking again for a key,” Olivia protested archly.

“I wasn’t going to steal anything, they’re just lads.”

Isobelle hid a smile and beckoned for Olivia to follow her back down the corridor.

When they returned, Gwen was instructing the women on the other side of the gate.

“If we can lift it enough, we’ll raise it

off the pegs that form the hinges.”

Isobelle and Olivia took their places on the outside, Isobelle’s fingers pressed up against the hand of one of the women holding

the inside of the door.

Her knuckles were swollen, and her skin was dreadfully cold.

Isobelle squeezed the cold hand, then tightened her hold on the iron bar and lifted with everything she had, straining to

drag the door up from the ground, a pain shooting through her jaw as she clenched it harder than she’d known she could.

The door lifted off its hinges, giving way, threatening to swing by its new hinge—the lock on the other side of the door—into

the cell, pinning the women who were trying to brace it without the help of the hinges.

Isobelle kept tight hold of it, throwing

her weight backward with the effort, but all she could do was slow its fall.

Then Gwen was there, stepping around her to take hold of it beside her, and with a groan of effort, dragging it back toward them once more.

And for all Isobelle had understood how hard it must be to move in armor, to lift a lance, to stay in the saddle, she hadn’t realized until this moment just how strong Gwen was.

The gate made a horrible screeching sound as they dragged it out of the way, but there was nothing to be done about that.

Half a dozen women quickly made their way out, one of them supported between two others, her feet dragging as she stumbled,

trying to keep herself from going down altogether.

“Let’s get it back in place,” Gwen hissed shortly.

“Let them think they just walked out of a locked cell. They’ll call it

fae or witches and won’t go looking for conveniently disguised blacksmith’s daughters.”

Isobelle caught her breath in a laugh and nodded to the other women, a few of whom joined the efforts to drag the screeching

door back onto the open peg hinges, until there was very little sign they’d ever been there at all.

“This way. I know a place where you’ll be safe, at least for now.” Olivia hurried up the hallway, and the women followed without

question—there was an air of competence about Olivia that commanded it, and it was a quality Isobelle was determined to master

herself one day.

She and Gwen brought up the rear, and Gwen reached out to squeeze her hand again.

I can’t believe we’ve done it.

And then she nearly ran into the back of one of the village women, who’d all stopped.

There was a fifth man in a guard’s uniform, standing at the base of the stairs, his gaze snapping up from the four men unconscious by the wall to rest on the group of women standing at the entrance to the cells.

“Ambrose,” said Olivia, her tone neutral.

“You’re not due on duty for an hour. What are you doing here?”

Ambrose stared at her, his mouth slightly open.

He gave his head a shake, as though trying to wake himself from a dream, but

not succeeding.

“I thought I’d come down and see Harlan,” he said, pausing to swallow hard.

“Is he dead?”

“Dead?” Olivia sounded mildly insulted.

“Only amateurs resort to murder at the first hurdle.” She nodded to the basket she’d

left by the foot of the stairs.

“I truly wish you’d eaten a tart too, though.”

“Dairy’s no good for my insides,” he said absently, looking back at the man he’d come to distract from his duties.

Olivia’s hand started to move slowly behind her back, to the place where Isobelle knew from experience there was a knife secreted

in the folds of her dress at the waist.

Reaching across, she closed her hand over Olivia’s wrist in silent instruction.

The woman’s eyes slid sideways, but with a

long-suffering expression, she gave a little nod that invited Isobelle to try her luck.

“Ambrose, was it?” Isobelle asked, lifting her veil and stepping forward to unleash her very best smile on the man.

Though

it was probably wasted, if he’d been here to visit Harlan.

“Y-yes, my lady—Ambrose Miller,” the man stammered, trying to both bow and keep his eyes on Olivia at the same time, shuffling

back and nearly tripping on the bottom step.

Olivia snorted, none too softly, but Isobelle pressed on.

“I’m sure you’re surprised to see us here. May I commend you on your excellent manners? It’s such a delight to—”

To her surprise, he held up a hand to cut her off, straightening his posture.

“My lady, I know you’re about to ask me to let you all by, and you have to know I can’t do that. These women are in the custody of Lord Whimsitt, and I am his sworn man.”

This was going to be difficult.

Not impossible, certainly—Isobelle saw initial refusals as more of an opening gambit than

a final position—but time wasn’t on their side.

As she was trying to choose her best line of attack, a voice came from behind

her.

Gwen’s voice.

“Where are you from?”

He blinked, craning his neck to see who was speaking from the back of the group.

“What?”

“Where are you from ?” Gwen repeated, keeping to the back of the group of women.

The rest of them remained silent—too tired or too fearful to

speak.

Or perhaps willing to trust the ones who’d got them this far.

“Nether Foxholm,” Ambrose said slowly.

“Then you’re a village boy,” Gwen said.

“Aye.”

“And you know what it will mean to these women’s families to lose them. What it will mean to their children to be motherless.

What it will mean to their husbands to find themselves alone.”

“I...” Ambrose trailed off.

He had no answer for that.

“You grew up around bonfires,” Gwen continued, her voice still low, her face still hidden.

“I won’t ask you to believe the

story these women told, though I know you must have heard plenty like it. I won’t ask you to imagine a dragon sent them running

here, knowing they’d be called mad. Just imagine what their homes will be like without them.”

Ambrose closed his eyes for a minute, lifting one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.

Carefully, softly, Isobelle tried her luck.

“Harlan will be well. He’s just taking a nap. I’m told the dreams are delightful.

Couldn’t you take a nap too, Ambrose?”

“I’m not eating one of them tarts,” he muttered.

“I’ll destroy the privy. I’ll just pretend.”

“And when it’s time to wake up...” Isobelle said delicately.

He didn’t look at them as he walked over to sit himself down beside his man, folding his arms across his chest as he prepared

to pretend to sleep.

“I’ll say nothing,” he muttered.

“Go, get somewhere safe.”

And so they did, without risking another word.

Quietly the group of them filed up the stairs, and when they reached ground

level, Olivia signaled to the village women to follow her.

They paused, though, and the gaunt leader who’d come first to the

cell door turned to look at Isobelle and Gwen.

“Thank you,” she said simply, and Isobelle, finding her throat had an unexpectedly large lump in it, nodded.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” said Gwen softly.

The woman managed a tired smile for that.

“All we can offer you by way of thanks is our warning,” she said, in her dry, tired

voice.

“Our words were true. Be ready.” And then she turned away.

Isobelle waited until they’d gone before she threw her arms around Gwen.

The other girl staggered back into the wall of the

staircase, putting her hands on Isobelle’s hips to steady her, and Isobelle surged up onto her toes to claim a triumphant

kiss.

“We did it,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to Gwen’s when they finally broke apart.

“Gwen, you were brilliant! Lifting the door off those hinges like a goddess! Talking round that village boy like—”

“Like you,” Gwen said, her pink cheeks visible even in the flickering torchlight.

“It was you that did it, though,” Isobelle pointed out, positively bubbling with pride.

Gwen smiled. “So it was a little bit of you, and a little bit of me.”

Isobelle kissed her for quite a long time after that.

“Gwen,” she said eventually, as they turned to hurry up the servants’ stairs toward their apartments.

“I can’t wait to see

you take on Orson in the final. You and I are going to be absolutely unstoppable.”

And in that moment, floating up the stairs on the wings of their victory, dizzy with kisses and schemes gone right and doing

her best to ignore every misgiving she’d been shoving aside for the past week, she very nearly believed it.

That feeling dissolved when Isobelle opened the door to her rooms.

“Isobelle!” Hilde leapt to her feet, wringing her hands.

“There you are!”

“Hilde? What...” Isobelle paused, as she took in the room.

“What are all three of you doing here?” Her mind was scrambling,

trying to think of any excuse to explain Gwen’s attire, to redirect their attention, to stop the revelations she felt sure

were on the verge of exploding.

But her thoughts felt like molasses, after so much else happening in such a short period of

time, and she could only stand there in confusion.

Sylvie slowly unfolded herself from a chair, crossing her arms and looking Isobelle and Gwen up and down.

Something about her wasn’t right—it was hard to tell with the lamps so low, but Isobelle could have sworn Sylvie’s eyes were red.

Suddenly, she felt colder.

But before she had a chance to ask, Sylvie spoke.

“Who died, Isobelle?”

“What?”

“Your dress,” Sylvie replied, like a patient tutor with a forgetful student.

Isobelle looked down.

“Ah,” she said. “Yes.”

“Forget the dress,” Jane cut in.

“Why is Céline wearing trousers ?”

“They are very fetching,” Hilde said.

“I like the silver highlights at the knees. But Céline, I am not sure you should wear

them about the castle.”

That dreadful coldness spread through Isobelle as she stood, rooted to the spot, watching Sylvie walk over to Gwen.

They were

of a height, the two of them, and Gwen met her eye with a steady gaze.

“Sylvie,” Jane began.

“We must—”

Sylvie cut her off with a raised hand, not turning her head to look across at their friend.

“I would like to look at these

clothes first. Are they your brother’s, Céline?”

Gwen’s lips parted to respond.

Then, slowly, she closed them again and simply lifted her chin, as if daring Sylvie to land

a blow.

She knew what was coming.

Sylvie dropped to a crouch in a fluid movement to inspect the patches of mail armor at Gwen’s knees.

“They fit you very well,”

Sylvie murmured.

Hilde tried to break the tension, her brow creased in confusion.

“Perhaps they will become a fashion,” she said.

“Sylvie...”

Sylvie was still looking up at Gwen, and though she was down on one knee, in the position of a supplicant, there was anything but surrender in her posture.

Isobelle tried to find calm, but the fingers of cold had got a grip on her ribs now, and they were squeezing.

Then Gwen let out a slow breath.

“Well, shit,” she muttered.

“Sylvie—” Isobelle croaked, but she got no further.

Sylvie let out a dark, bitter laugh, bringing her hands together in slow applause as she rose to her feet.

“I can’t believe

I didn’t see it,” she said.

“A man of mystery, Sir Gawain. He never appears without his armor.”

“I don’t understand,” Jane said, her gaze flicking from Sylvie to Isobelle, brow wrinkled.

“Jane,” Isobelle tried, but she was swallowed up by the sensation that something inside her was falling.

This was the moment

it all came undone.

Gwen was looking at her, white beneath her beautiful freckles.

Sylvie whirled around to face Jane and Hilde, her hand sweeping down Gwen like she was some kind of tourney prize.

“You don’t

see it, girls?”

“What?” Jane blinked.

“But how...?” Hilde managed, one beat ahead of her friend.

Gwen closed her eyes.

It hurt to watch her, to see the instant it was all stripped away.

Gwen, I’m sorry. I thought we had longer.

I still have things to say.

“Ohhhhhh,” said Jane slowly, her eyes widening as comprehension wormed its way into her brain and made itself at home.

“Oh,

no wonder Céline never came to the jousts!”

“Well, I for one don’t blame us for not seeing it sooner,” Hilde said firmly, hands on her hips.

“Whoever would have guessed

it?”

Sylvie tilted a glance at Isobelle.

“I assume this was your idea?”

“Be fair,” Hilde chided.

“Céline could already joust. Isobelle just recruited her to this particular cause. Have you jousted

secretly in Europe, Céline?”

Gwen puffed out her cheeks, then let out a slow breath.

“No,” she said simply, before making things considerably more complicated:

“And my name’s not Céline. It’s Gwen. I come from Ellsdale. My father’s Amos, the village blacksmith.”

Ah , thought Isobelle.

So we’re divesting ourselves of the lies completely.

May as well, I suppose.

“Oh!” Jane lit up. “Your father’s the one who made the delightful horseshoes!”

“I think,” said Hilde slowly, “that it was Gwen who made them.”

“Wait... so your whole romance with Gawain was a lie, Isobelle?” Jane asked, far more distressed by that than by the revelation

of Gwen’s identity.

Gwen’s gaze fell on Isobelle, waiting.

Even now, she was giving Isobelle the space she needed to make her decision.

Permission

to keep this much, at least, a secret—to stay in the comfortable familiarity of her friends without challenging the way they

saw her.

To hell with that , Isobelle thought, lifting her chin.

“No,” she said. “No... it wasn’t a lie.”

Jane’s eyes widened and shifted toward Gwen, and then slid back to Isobelle, searching for signs of this new concept on her

friend’s familiar features.

Hilde’s lips curved into a smile, her rosy cheeks going pinker with pleasure, and she stepped forward to take Isobelle’s hand

and squeeze it.

“And here I thought you had not noticed the way you were looking at your champion’s sister.”

Isobelle gulped for breath, not having realized she’d been holding it.

She glanced over at Gwen, her shoulders dropping with relief—only to realize Gwen wasn’t looking at her.

She was looking at Sylvie, biting her lip, eyes full of sympathy.

Isobelle blinked. Did Gwen think Sylvie was jealous?

True, Sylvie had been more suspicious of “Lady Céline” than the others,

but.

.. Isobelle inspected her friend, taking in the set of her jaw, the thin line of her mouth.

Sylvie’s arms weren’t crossed,

she realized—she was hunched in on herself.

“Sylvie... ” Isobelle said, ignoring the cold that had reached her fingertips now.

“What’s going on? Why were you all gathered

in my room, before Gwen and I got here?”

Jane and Hilde both looked to Sylvie.

Sylvie lifted her chin, eyes remote and calm.

“My father has arranged my betrothal.”

Isobelle pressed her hand to her mouth.

“What?” she managed, from behind it.

“He had an offer he couldn’t refuse,” Sylvie continued.

“An unexpected offer, from a man who found himself in the market for

a wife.”

Isobelle wanted to stop time.

She wanted to take two quick steps back and bolt through the door.

Back to the staircase, where

she’d kissed Gwen, and had been invincible.

Back to Hilde squeezing her hand, understanding her and Gwen, together.

But the

cold dread inside her rooted her to the spot.

“Sylvie...” she whispered.

Sylvie’s mouth tremored, just for an instant, before it firmed again.

But that small hint was like watching the castle itself crumble, great stones falling to the ground as the walls collapsed.

“I am to marry Sir Ralph.”

A sound emerged from Gwen like she’d received a physical blow—and Isobelle felt her own body go rigid all over.

She could

not take her eyes from Sylvie’s face, though, seeking something, anything, that would undo what she had said.

This is your fault.

The words forced themselves into Isobelle’s mind.

She didn’t know if they came from herself, or from Sylvie, but they were

true.

If she hadn’t found a way to dodge Sir Ralph—if she hadn’t humiliated and infuriated him in doing it—he never would

have looked for a way to bring her down a peg.

For that was exactly what this was.

And now Sylvie—sharp, clever, dangerous Sylvie—was going to lose her claws.

She was going to diminish slowly on some country

estate, far from everyone who loved her, for there was no way she’d be allowed to stay with her friends, the only people who

would support her, help her keep her strength.

“Oh, Sylvie,” Isobelle whispered.

“Don’t say anything,” Sylvie replied tightly.

So Isobelle didn’t. Instead, she flung herself at her friend and wrapped her arms around her neck, wishing she could shield

her from all the harm in the world.

With a wordless sound, Sylvie’s arms went around her in return.