Gwen breathed deeply, struck by a memory. “I wondered, once, back before the tournament final, if I’d even be here to smell the changing of the seasons this year.”

Isobelle’s arm, linked through hers, tightened. Gwen could feel the force of her eyes boring into her. “That’s awfully melodramatic, you know.”

Gwen let out a snort, glancing down to find that she was, indeed, being stared at by a pair of narrowed blue eyes. “Well, to be fair, you had just begged me to run away with you because you thought I was going to die, so if I was being melodramatic, I wasn’t the only one.”

The stare softened. “Hush. I am sensible and practical at all times. Oh, there’s your father! Shall we go say hi?”

They were walking down the same well-worn slope where Gwen had first laid eyes on Isobelle, clad in her pinkest, most outrageous gown and flanked on both sides by other girls dressed to the teeth. Just ahead was her father’s booth, though if Isobelle had not pointed it out, Gwen might have missed it entirely. Not a single flash of the booth, or of Amos, was visible through the throng of customers clustered about the place.

Gwen snuck a glance at the other side of the path. Her father’s main rival, the blacksmith who favored flashy—and noisy—sword demonstrations to attract customers, was leaning against the wall with a thoughtful frown on his face as he glowered at the mob of people clamoring for Amos’s figurines.

“He’s busy,” Gwen said finally, with a smile. “Fortunately, he has help. A couple of the women from Aberfarthing are still staying in Ellsdale, and the one who’s been staying in my room has been helping him with sales so he can focus on doing what he loves.”

Isobelle gave a dreamy little sigh. “If I were him, I’d rather make Sir Gwen figurines than horseshoes, too.”

Gwen drew Isobelle on down the path, flustered by the tangle of emotions that always flickered to life in her when she heard that name and title.

She wasn’t a knight. Lord Whimsitt had made that much clear, after Olivia, Sylvie, and the others had gotten Gwen and Isobelle back to Darkhaven just as dawn was breaking, the night of the battle against the dragon.

It had taken some time for the assembled lords and knights to grapple with the truth of what had taken place—that a girl, armed only with an ancient spear and the power of friendship—had done what none of them had dared even attempt. But after Whimsitt had dispatched several men to go investigate the battleground, and they’d come back visibly shaken to report that there was, indeed, the corpse of an extremely large dragon exactly where the ladies had said there would be . . . well.