She felt like she was living in that story now, looking around at the knights in their war room. Suddenly she was seeing all their finery and pageantry for what it really was, and she couldn’t unsee it.

“Little boys playing knights,” she murmured distantly, a memory overtaking her. “Afraid to be undone . . .”

She was back in Ellsdale, upstairs at Gwen’s house on the night of the dragon bonfire.

Gwen’s fingers had worked the lacings on her dress free, and they’d talked softly, to keep from noticing how close they stood. They’d been talking, joking—but also not joking—about the work that the world required of women so that men could ride out into adventure and become heroes.

The more I think on it, the more questions I have about that system, Isobelle had said. And then, as Gwen kept pulling on her lacings: Don’t bring it all the way undone, or it’s tricky to put back together again.

The system, or the laces? Gwen had laughed.

Both, Isobelle had whispered.

But it was undone. Isobelle had tugged too hard at the laces, and now she knew she’d never be able to put the world back together the same way.

Now, as Isobelle scanned the gathered men—Orson’s reddened but resolute face, Whimsitt’s darkly angry countenance, Ralph’s predatory, possessive eyes—she realized one more thing: she didn’t want to put it back together.

Last night she had begged Gwen to run away with her, thinking it was the only way to escape their cage—that they had to bend its bars and somehow slither out between them, flee beyond the reach of their jailers.

But the cage wasn’t the ballroom, or the castle, or even the county of Darkhaven—the cage was a part of her, something driven into her by every word and glance and deed of those around her, by every breath she took while accepting she was theirs to keep.

“We live inside cages of your design.” Isobelle’s voice summoned every gaze in the room to fix on her face. “Little boys with wooden swords, and cages that hold us as long as we think we belong inside them. Even when I tried to rebel, I did it within the confines of those bars. I went looking for a champion to keep your knights from claiming me, and in doing so, I agreed you had the right to give me away.”

“I have every right,” Whimsitt snarled. “You think these swords at our belts are toys, girl? That your privilege protects you if you defy your lord?”