“It doesn’t matter why I was doing it,” Gwen said, not looking at Isobelle. “The end was always going to be the same.” She shoved away from the stable wall.

Isobelle reached out a hand to catch her arm, but Gwen deftly twisted away, her reflexes razor-sharp. Isobelle fought the wild urge to sprint after Gwen and catch her, hold her still, make her believe again—and then the reality of the tournament, Gwen’s heartbreak and disappointment, and her own impending doom all crashed in on her and she could only stand there, arms wrapped across her middle, holding herself together after a terrible, mortal wound.

Chapter Twenty-Eight
You are not the first to ask whether a woman could hold a sword

Lord Whimsitt threw a grand feast that night, celebrating the eve of the first round of the tournament. Gwen knew she should have gone in her guise as Céline to sell the fiction of Sir Gawain before he made his big debut against Sir Ralph the next day.

But Gwen could not bring herself to put on that mask. Layers upon layers of deceit, her head spinning with what role she was meant to be playing and when . . . Her only consolation and refuge was that at least she hadn’t had to pick a persona to play in front of Isobelle.

And now . . . now she did.

It had seemed so easy last night, under the moonlit canopy of trees, to give Isobelle as much time as she needed to understand her own mind and heart. But today, doused in the icy cold torrent of realization that their charade would be coming to an end not at some hazy, undefined future moment, but tomorrow, Gwen had felt an unfamiliar panic reach up and grip her by the throat. They didn’t have that time. They would never have that time.

Gwen couldn’t wear that mask again in front of Isobelle, not without shouting at her the way she’d done that afternoon.

Ever since she’d agreed to Isobelle’s plan, she’d been trying not to think about the stark reality of riding against seasoned knights and counting on her passion to mean more than their birthrights. She’d been trying not to look at the likelihood that she’d end up in jail—or worse—if she were found out. She’d been trying not to imagine Isobelle’s despair when Gwen failed her, as she would certainly do eventually, no matter how hard she tried.

Instead, every fear and worry Gwen had been ignoring, like some child covering her eyes against the monster-infested night, had come spilling out in one searing, wrenching explosion. Instead, she’d done exactly what she’d been trying so hard to avoid: she’d crushed Isobelle.