“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.

Chapter Twenty-Six
A wild horse of feeling and emotion