Gwen felt a pain jolt her hands—she’d curled them into fists so tight her fingernails were digging into her palms. Somewhere within her flickered that same fury that had swept through her the day she defeated Sir Evonwald and earned her way past the qualifiers, the day she’d overheard the knights talking about Isobelle like she was nothing more than a thing they could own and use as they wished. “Did they stop laughing when they saw what you could do?”

“They never did.” Dupont’s words came quick and hard, like blows. “I ran. I let them take my defiance and my joy and replace it with shame, and when I ran away in the night, that shame is the only thing I took with me.”

Gwen could feel her eyes burning. A day ago, she would have driven her sword through her own foot rather than let Madame Dupont see tears in her eyes. But now, the moisture wetting her lashes and turning the firelight into a glittering kaleidoscope was all she had to offer in exchange for this story Dupont was giving her. A part of her refused to imagine the invincible woman she’d come to know since arriving at the castle as a broken-hearted girl, running away in the dark of night.

Another, deeper part of her could feel the truth of the tale. Could see how someone could have emerged from that crucible as some harder, stronger substance.

“That was when I made my way here,” Madame Dupont went on, glancing out at the moonlit shadows beyond the ring of firelight where they sat together. “I work here to strengthen the wills and spines of these young women—not necessarily to carry a sword, but to hold up under the blows and cuts the world wishes to inflict upon them.”

Her eyes swung back again to meet Gwen’s. “But I still carry that shame they gave me, because once you accept a thing as yours, it is difficult to cast off again. It is hard, once you have opened a door, to close it once more.”

Gwen found herself gulping for a breath, fighting to get the air past the tight knots in her chest. “You’re saying that I have to fight,” she whispered. “That it is already too late to turn back—whether I run or fight, I will be opening a door and inviting something in.”

Dupont nodded, and then took one of Gwen’s hands in her own. The gesture was so startling that Gwen looked down, staring at the woman’s strong, callused fingers, the back of her hand marked with the same black-on-brown freckles that dotted her cheeks. Her skin was dry and warm, her grip tight.

“Go on,” Dupont said. “Say the words again.”