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.”