Gwen blinked and tried to respond naturally, though even Isobelle could see the faint indicators of panic around her eyes and lips. “Oh. I, uh . . . do you have ale?”

Jinna raised her impeccably arched eyebrows, and Isobelle half expected her to push back and insist Gwen try something more adventurous. But, displaying that uncanny knack she had of anticipating her patrons’ needs, she simply nodded, letting Gwen stick to the familiar. “Coming right up, ladies.”

Isobelle realized she was staring at Gwen too, watching her even more intently than Jinna had, and wrenched her gaze away toward something, anything, else. “Oooh, there’s a table opening up against the wall. Grab it, quick!”

Looking mildly relieved to have a reason to run away, Gwen ducked through the crowd, dodging a cluster of dancers moving toward the fiddler, then making a lunge for the table, getting a hand on it just before a trio of well-dressed women reached it. One of them opened her mouth to argue, but then they all took a look at Gwen’s you would not believe the night I am having expression, and silently but unanimously took a step back.

As Isobelle slid into her chair opposite Gwen, she braced herself, trying to remember how her rehearsed pitch began.

But Gwen’s eyes slid from her face, fixing instead on the tavern owner bustling away behind the bar. “She said this was her place,” she murmured, just loud enough to be heard over the din. “She owns it?”

Isobelle nodded. “My friend Sylvie told me about this place a few months ago. Jinna’s a widow, and her husband didn’t have much when he died. But she bought this place from the previous owner after working her way up, and now . . . well, you can see what it is now.”

She glanced out toward the dance floor stuffed full of women dancing and talking and gesturing wildly, laughing at bawdy jokes and shouting over the music. There were men in the crowd here and there, but they were decidedly in the minority.

“It’s a little like something . . . magic,” Gwen murmured, a slight wistfulness slipping past the defenses in her expression. “I never knew a place like this existed.”

Isobelle watched Gwen’s profile as she gazed out at the spectacle. She was aware of a strange tugging in her chest, a need to speak or act, though she hadn’t the faintest idea what to say.

And then Jinna was there, shattering that moment of tension. She set down Gwen’s ale, and then Isobelle’s drink, a white concoction topped with a sprig of mint and several blackberries speared through with a miniature wooden lance.

Gwen stared at it as Isobelle thanked Jinna. “What on earth is that?” she murmured finally. “She said . . . cocktail?”