Madame Dupont had curled her freckled hands over Gwen’s, meeting her eye, squeezing her fingers until they stopped shaking. “Show them who you are,” the woman said, solemn, nodding. “Let everything else fall away.”

Now, Gwen longed to lift her visor so she could meet Isobelle’s eyes properly. Let her see in Gwen’s face that it wasn’t about beating the other knights, or showing that she was the best, or even changing the hearts and minds of the spectators. It was about proving something to herself. Something that had been inside Gwen as long as she could remember, long before she ever met Isobelle.

She may have started on this path to save Isobelle—but she had to finish it for herself. Isobelle had seen her, the real her, when no one else had . . . not even Gwen herself.

She would ride and finish this tournament. And when she’d won, she would salute Isobelle, and then run. Achilles could clear the rails that blocked off the end of the lists, and Gwen could be away before anyone realized her headlong flight was anything other than a display of victorious adrenaline. She could lie low while the dust cleared, and as the rest of the county was trying to figure out where Sir Gawain had gone, she would come back for Isobelle.

And if Isobelle still wanted to go . . . Gwen would go with her.

Gwen’s eyes burned as she gazed intently at Isobelle’s face, willing the other girl to somehow see past her visor, to see her heart in her eyes.

But Isobelle wasn’t even looking at her. Her head was turned, gaze lifted to fix on something more distant, and she . . . she’d gone white.

Gwen twisted to see a column of guards marching down past the spectators. The cheers and chanting of the crowd had changed to a confused, wild susurration of conversation and speculation.

Something was wrong.

Achilles, sensing his rider’s uncertainty, danced back a few paces, half turning toward the exit. The end of the lists was covered by guards, too. There would be no escaping that way, unless the guards left before the joust began. An anxious whinny made her glance to her right, where Orson’s horse was becoming restless too, reacting to the tension in his rider’s body.

“Dismount, Sir Gawain.” The voice came from Lord Whimsitt, standing in his box with both hands braced against the barrier.

Gwen looked up at him, not moving yet, her head spinning as it tried to catch up. Whimsitt’s voice was even, but she was close enough to see his face as he looked down on them—on her. She was close enough to see the anger transforming his ordinarily placid countenance into something aggressive and full of fury.