Her gaze swung across the hushed crowd, seeing not individual faces so much as a bewildering composite of wide eyes and open mouths, of shock and confusion and disgust. Now and then she thought she saw something else—hope or admiration—but she lost sight of it whenever she tried to focus on those few faces, seeing only more anger and betrayal wherever she looked.

Finally, her eyes found Isobelle again. Her cheeks were glinting with tears, her hands white-knuckled where they clutched at the barrier. Gwen’s own heart wrenched, seeing her heartbreak—she bit her lip, then mouthed the words: I’m sorry.

It would probably be the last chance she had to tell Isobelle anything at all.

Isobelle’s face crumpled, just before Whimsitt—seeing this exchange—stepped between them, face purpling with fury.

“As you see, this . . . this woman has made a mockery of our oldest, most sacred traditions!” His face twisted around the word “woman” as if it had tasted nasty on his tongue. “She has stripped her opponents of their right to face their peers in noble combat, she has robbed you of your final, and tainted this ancient rite.”

Gwen felt that heated, metallic something deep inside her stir, rising in a way it hadn’t since that first qualifying joust, after she’d heard the way the other knights talked about Isobelle.

“No, you are robbing them of their final!” she burst out, tearing her arm away from the guard’s grip and striding toward Whimsitt’s box. “If you let me ride, if you let me show you what I’ve been showing you, all this time—”

The guard had scrambled to catch at Gwen again, joined by one of his comrades, so that the two of them wrestled Gwen back. Whimsitt was gesturing, indicating something violent by the curse words spilling from his tongue—but the guards, uncertain about punching a woman in the mouth the way they’d apparently happily do a man, simply dragged Gwen down onto her knees.

“You will not speak!” shrieked Whimsitt, slamming his hands down on the railing hard enough to make the stands reverberate with the blow. Murmurs scattered through the crowd as they whispered and shifted nervously, uncertain how to react. Whimsitt stood panting, regaining some measure of his composure before he continued. “I was informed last night of this woman’s vile treachery and deceit. She will be taken into custody and held until we have finished the tournament festivities. And then . . . then she will pay for her crimes.”