Gwen dropped into her own chair by the fire. “The internship, right. It was fine. I don’t think I got it, though.” Sitting down drained away all the fire that had been keeping her upright, and exhaustion reached up and grabbed her.

Her father frowned. “What do you mean, you didn’t get it? You’ve been working on those armor pieces for months. Years, if you count all your drawing and daydreaming. They’re flawless, ingenious. Who the hell saw those and didn’t snap you up?”

Gwen kept her eyes on the fire, uncertain whether she could keep up her facade of indifference if she actually saw the indignation she could hear in his voice. “It’s fine, Dad. I wouldn’t have done it anyway, I just . . . I just wanted to see if I was good enough. If I could do it.”

Her father was quiet, so Gwen risked a glance his way through her lashes. He was staring down at his knees, his longtime habit when he was thinking. His sandy brown hair was in disarray and his face was tired, as it usually was, but there was a spark in it she hadn’t seen in some time.

“You know I’d be fine, right?” His eyes lifted and met hers. “If you wanted to . . . to go grab something, something like that internship, I’d be okay.”

Gwen dropped her eyes. “Yeah, I know, Dad.”

“I mean it.” His voice sharpened, the barest edge needed to make Gwen look at him and listen. It was the voice he’d used when she was a child, teaching her about safety in the forge—the voice that told her when to stop running, when to put her hands behind her back, when to pay attention.

“I know I’ve come to rely on you too much these past years,” he went on, his face showing signs of that old ache, as fresh as the day her mother died. “But I don’t want you shutting yourself down to anything because you think you’ve got to stay here and take care of me. If there was something you wanted, something that would take you away for a while . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence, but his eyes were penetrating, too keen for comfort.

Gwen shifted in her chair, unwilling to admit even to herself that his words were cutting too close. “I told you, Dad. I don’t think I got it.” She paused, and then added, “If nothing else, I’m a girl. They wouldn’t let a woman prove she could do a man’s job as well as he can.” She could still see the stunned faces of the spectators all around her when a completely unknown knight had knocked Sir Evonwald off his horse—could imagine how quickly that shock would have turned to horror if she’d pulled off her helmet and shown them who’d really beaten their local favorite.