“The system, or the laces?” Gwen huffed a tiny laugh as she finished untangling the ends.

“Both, I guess.” Isobelle shivered, a light, tiny movement, and swallowed audibly again.

Gwen ought to have continued their casual conversation, but that little shiver of Isobelle’s had captured her attention as singularly as a stray spark flying from a hot forge toward a pile of hay. Scarcely daring to acknowledge the experiment to herself, she breathed out again, a soft laugh, stirring the curls of escaped hair at the nape of Isobelle’s neck.

Isobelle shivered again, a light ripple of movement that made her sway, just the tiniest bit, into Gwen’s hands.

Gwen’s thoughts, which had been crowding round her like customers all jostling to be served first, fled. She started where the lacings were already loose at Isobelle’s shoulder blades, and began to pull them out, one at a time, until just the ends were still tucked through the eyelets. Each shift and tug elicited a response from Isobelle’s body, a swaying rhythm that began to feel like a dance as the firelight outside flickered a slow, accompanying tempo.

Gwen laid a hand against Isobelle’s rib cage, and the other girl leaned into her, instantly recognizing the support for what it was. Gwen slipped her fingers beneath the crisscrossing laces, and bit her lip as she registered the warmth of Isobelle’s skin, the thin chemise she wore beneath the dress no more substantial than a cobweb.

The hand at Isobelle’s ribs slid to her waist as Gwen’s fingers—moving entirely without direction from her mind—worked down into the dip at the small of Isobelle’s back.

Isobelle made a soft sound, like a gulp for air, and then said in a nearly inaudible rush, “I, uh, I like your quilt.”

Gwen’s awareness flickered toward the bed in the room, but she refocused her attention on her task before the rush of desperate thoughts could overwhelm her again. Or ask herself why Isobelle might be staring at her bed. “My mother made it for me,” she said, noting with a kind of strange wonder the way Isobelle’s head turned a fraction at the sound of her voice, like a flower seeking the light. “It’s one of my most treasured possessions. I’m glad you like it.”

“I wish I could have met your mother,” Isobelle said softly.

“She would have loved you.” She’d reached the end of the lacings where they sat at the base of Isobelle’s spine. The temptation to let her fingers continue their work was so overwhelming that Gwen had to bite her lip, hard. Instead, she ran her fingertips lightly over the edges of the dress back up to the shoulders, to tug at the fabric and test whether it was loose enough to let Isobelle slip free.