“You may be surprised to learn that we are quite a bit richer now than we used to be,” her father said, offering the figurine for her to take. “They’ve been selling faster than cheesecake on a stick.”

“But . . . but now they all know that I’m not Sir Gawain.”

Amos gave a wave of his hand. “You think that’s stopped them? I left Theo dealing with a crowd outside the smithy a dozen strong, waiting for a new batch of figurines to drop. Yes, Lord Whimsitt is an idiot, and yes, I’m sure he managed to tell a bunch of other idiots what they should think about the idea of a woman in armor. But not everyone is listening to him, Gwen.”

Gwen inspected the little figurine resting in the palm of her hand. He’d even captured Achilles, down to the cowlick in his mane that insisted on standing up, no matter how she tried to comb it down. Her horse. Her armor. Her.

Her father reached through the bars, took her hand, and gently curled her fingers closed over the figurine in her palm. “Look at me, Gwen.”

Gwen swallowed around the lump in her throat and lifted her face toward her father.

“All those stories your mum used to tell you, about chivalry and slaying monsters and defending the helpless . . . none of those stories were about being a knight.” He squeezed her hand, his voice rough with emotion. “They were about being a hero.”

Gwen bit her lip, reaching for breath and finding she could inhale longer and deeper than she’d been able to do in a long time. She blinked back her tears and tightened her fingers around the figurine in her hand.

“Right,” she said, in a voice that was miraculously steady. “Dad—have you gotten a look at the cell door yet?”

Amos let out a derisive snort. “Peg hinges. I mean, what kind of shortsighted idiot would take such a stupid shortcut when designing a jail? Whoever they hired as their ironworker for this dungeon ought to be—”

“Yes, Dad,” Gwen interrupted, fighting back a grin. “When all this is over perhaps you can go tell them how wrong they are and offer to do it right. Do you think we can . . . ?”

Amos chuckled. “Girl, please. Your dad’s a blacksmith.” He stretched his broad shoulders, cracked his knuckles, and then turned to set his back against the grill. Waiting for Gwen to take her place on the other side, he curled his hands around the crossbar and took a deep breath. “On my count? One . . . two . . .”

Chapter Forty-Five
. . . Or it’s tricky to put back together again

There were two guards on duty, and Jane dealt easily with the first.