Isobelle uttered a soft sound, shades of feeling in it too numerous for Gwen to unpack. When Gwen raised her eyes, finally, Isobelle was studying her, her own eyes widened with sudden understanding, scanning Gwen’s features as if seeing her anew.

“You were right,” Isobelle said finally, her normally smooth and well-practiced voice low and a little rough. “What you said, after the tea party—you were right. When someone kisses you, it should be because they want to. Need to. Because they can’t take another second wondering, dreaming, about what it would be like.”

Gwen held very still—Isobelle had remembered every word she’d said that night. Fear told her to drop her eyes, to pull away, lest Isobelle see the truth of what she wondered and dreamed about—see how easily and deeply she could hurt Gwen if this fragile dance of theirs fell apart. Fear told her to end it herself, one way or another, before Isobelle could.

Instead Gwen sat, unmoving, watching Isobelle’s eyes, turned pale silver in the moonlight, the flutter of the pulse at her throat, the tiny sound her lips made when they parted. She saw Isobelle’s gaze dip, saw her breath quicken as she watched Gwen’s mouth.

The realization came, not like a bolt of lightning, but like the slow unclenching of tense muscles at the end of a long day—the soft and subtle remembering of home and safety, and of being enough. Gwen felt something come free in her chest, a band of tightness she hadn’t noticed until suddenly she could exhale again with her full lungs, with her whole body.

It left her full and aching, the realization that Isobelle was longing to kiss her, too.

Isobelle’s hands were shaking a little, where they rested against Gwen’s. Her breathing was uneven. Uncertainty and confusion clouded the silver moonlit gaze.

She was scared. Her Isobelle, frightened. Or if not frightened, at least . . . unsure. Caught up in something moving far too quickly for her, a wild horse of feeling and emotion, galloping out of control with no ravine to direct its course.

Gwen closed her fingers around Isobelle’s hands again, waiting until they calmed. She let out a long, slow, audible breath, until she felt Isobelle do the same, mirroring her body language automatically. Another breath, letting the tension singing between them drain, letting them both step back from the precipice.

When Isobelle’s eyes finally met hers, Gwen raised her eyebrows and gave her a smile. “It’s getting late,” she murmured. “I guess we should start making our way back before anyone notices you’re not there?”

Gwen had meant to make it a suggestion—to show Isobelle they could walk up to this cliff’s edge as many times as they needed to before she was ready to leap. Instead it was a question. Instead, it left room for Isobelle to make her own choice.