His eyes lit as he saw her. “Gwen! Oh, Gwen, I saw part of your joust last time against Lorenzo, and it was brilliant—of course, I didn’t know it was you, but I would’ve just thought it was even more brilliant if I had, and obviously now I—”

“Theo,” Gwen had cut in, aware the boy would go on talking until someone stopped him, like a runaway horse with an infinite amount of road. “I can’t stay. Do you know where my dad put my armor?”

Theo’s face had glowed even more. “Oh, I have it! I fixed the leather straps—they’re a little stiff, definitely not as good as the ones you made, but they’ll work in a pinch, because I figured if they end up letting you finish the tournament and all that, you’d want—” He had turned, retrieving a pile of gleaming metal as he’d spoken.

Gwen’s breath seized in her lungs at the sight of her armor, and when she’d looked up to Theo’s shiny-cheeked face, every misgiving she’d ever had about the boy went flying out the window. “Theo, you’re amazing!” she cried, and leaned up to kiss him on the cheek.

She’d left Theo behind, staring at her red-faced as he watched her ride away. She’d paused only to ask a question of a woman who’d emerged, yawning, from their neighbor’s cottage—Gwen had recognized her from the jail cell, the night they’d freed the villagers from Aberfarthing.

The gold mine, the woman had said in response to Gwen’s urgent question, her eyes wide as she gazed up at the woman in armor. It came up from the mine.

Achilles’s long, loping gait ate up the distance with ease, despite the added weight of Gwen’s armor and the dragonslaying spear lashed to his saddle.

The moon was gibbous, its light filtering through the thinner trees that arched over the road, casting monstrous shadows onto the silvered dirt. The air streaming past Gwen’s cheeks was cool, growing colder as the day’s warmth slipped away into the night. Before her rose mountains beyond the woods, looming higher every minute she rode, blocking out the stars.

Without warning, Achilles burst out of the trees and onto a village path. Gwen reined him back into a trot, catching her breath . . . and then he stopped as her grip on the reins went lax.

It wasn’t a village anymore.

Aberfarthing.