“Where are you from?” Gwen repeated, keeping to the back of the group of women. The rest of them remained silent—too tired or too fearful to speak. Or perhaps willing to trust the ones who’d got them this far.

“Nether Foxholm,” Ambrose said slowly.

“Then you’re a village boy,” Gwen said.

“Aye.”

“And you know what it will mean to these women’s families to lose them. What it will mean to their children to be motherless. What it will mean to their husbands to find themselves alone.”

“I . . .” Ambrose trailed off. He had no answer for that.

“You grew up around bonfires,” Gwen continued, her voice still low, her face still hidden. “I won’t ask you to believe the story these women told, though I know you must have heard plenty like it. I won’t ask you to imagine a dragon sent them running here, knowing they’d be called mad. Just imagine what their homes will be like without them.”

Ambrose closed his eyes for a minute, lifting one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.

Carefully, softly, Isobelle tried her luck. “Harlan will be well. He’s just taking a nap. I’m told the dreams are delightful. Couldn’t you take a nap too, Ambrose?”

“I’m not eating one of them tarts,” he muttered. “I’ll destroy the privy. I’ll just pretend.”

“And when it’s time to wake up . . .” Isobelle said delicately.

He didn’t look at them as he walked over to sit himself down beside his man, folding his arms across his chest as he prepared to pretend to sleep. “I’ll say nothing,” he muttered. “Go, get somewhere safe.”

And so they did, without risking another word. Quietly the group of them filed up the stairs, and when they reached ground level, Olivia signaled to the village women to follow her. They paused, though, and the gaunt leader who’d come first to the cell door turned to look at Isobelle and Gwen.

“Thank you,” she said simply, and Isobelle, finding her throat had an unexpectedly large lump in it, nodded.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” said Gwen softly.

The woman managed a tired smile for that. “All we can offer you by way of thanks is our warning,” she said, in her dry, tired voice. “Our words were true. Be ready.” And then she turned away.

Isobelle waited until they’d gone before she threw her arms around Gwen. The other girl staggered back into the wall of the staircase, putting her hands on Isobelle’s hips to steady her, and Isobelle surged up onto her toes to claim a triumphant kiss.

“We did it,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to Gwen’s when they finally broke apart. “Gwen, you were brilliant! Lifting the door off those hinges like a goddess! Talking round that village boy like—”

“Like you,” Gwen said, her pink cheeks visible even in the flickering torchlight.