Sylvie was still looking up at Gwen, and though she was down on one knee, in the position of a supplicant, there was anything but surrender in her posture.

Isobelle tried to find calm, but the fingers of cold had got a grip on her ribs now, and they were squeezing.

Then Gwen let out a slow breath. “Well, shit,” she muttered.

“Sylvie—” Isobelle croaked, but she got no further.

Sylvie let out a dark, bitter laugh, bringing her hands together in slow applause as she rose to her feet. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it,” she said. “A man of mystery, Sir Gawain. He never appears without his armor.”

“I don’t understand,” Jane said, her gaze flicking from Sylvie to Isobelle, brow wrinkled.

“Jane,” Isobelle tried, but she was swallowed up by the sensation that something inside her was falling. This was the moment it all came undone. Gwen was looking at her, white beneath her beautiful freckles.

Sylvie whirled around to face Jane and Hilde, her hand sweeping down Gwen like she was some kind of tourney prize. “You don’t see it, girls?”

“What?” Jane blinked.

“But how . . . ?” Hilde managed, one beat ahead of her friend.

Gwen closed her eyes. It hurt to watch her, to see the instant it was all stripped away.

Gwen, I’m sorry. I thought we had longer. I still have things to say.

“Ohhhhhh,” said Jane slowly, her eyes widening as comprehension wormed its way into her brain and made itself at home. “Oh, no wonder Céline never came to the jousts!”

“Well, I for one don’t blame us for not seeing it sooner,” Hilde said firmly, hands on her hips. “Whoever would have guessed it?”

Sylvie tilted a glance at Isobelle. “I assume this was your idea?”

“Be fair,” Hilde chided. “Céline could already joust. Isobelle just recruited her to this particular cause. Have you jousted secretly in Europe, Céline?”

Gwen puffed out her cheeks, then let out a slow breath. “No,” she said simply, before making things considerably more complicated: “And my name’s not Céline. It’s Gwen. I come from Ellsdale. My father’s Amos, the village blacksmith.”

Ah, thought Isobelle. So we’re divesting ourselves of the lies completely. May as well, I suppose.

“Oh!” Jane lit up. “Your father’s the one who made the delightful horseshoes!”

“I think,” said Hilde slowly, “that it was Gwen who made them.”

“Wait . . . so your whole romance with Gawain was a lie, Isobelle?” Jane asked, far more distressed by that than by the revelation of Gwen’s identity.

Gwen’s gaze fell on Isobelle, waiting. Even now, she was giving Isobelle the space she needed to make her decision. Permission to keep this much, at least, a secret—to stay in the comfortable familiarity of her friends without challenging the way they saw her.