“None of that, Jane,” Isobelle cut in swiftly before taking a prim sip of her tea. “Sir Gawain is mine, you keep your hands off him. His first dance belongs to me.”

Gwen barely had any time for her relief at the rescue to register before the rest of Isobelle’s words sank in. “Uh,” she said, trying to catch her eye. “I doubt Sir Gawain will be attending any ball. He is more comfortable in his armor, after all.”

But Isobelle just laughed, her eyes gleaming.

Jane’s eyebrows had shot up, her teacup settling against her saucer loudly enough to cut through Hilde’s giggle. “Hang on,” she said. “You’re into Sir Gawain? Has someone managed to displace Tristan of Cambridge? Are you telling me that his dark eyes—”

“Dreamy eyes,” Hilde corrected her. “She said they were dreamy—”

“That the poet’s dreamy eyes,” Jane graciously corrected herself, “have lost their hold on you?”

“He is a very talented poet,” Hilde informed Gwen, raising her cup to the absent man in a toast. “When he came through on tour, Isobelle made us attend all three of his performances.”

“I never spoke a word to him!” Isobelle finally managed to break in, her gaze threatening to set the two of them on fire.

“More’s the pity,” Jane replied. “The man’s diction was beautiful. No doubt just as beautiful as his—”

“Jane!” Finally Isobelle managed to quell her friend. “Honestly, if a girl can’t admire a traveling poet, what’s left in the world?”

“Sir Gawain, apparently,” Jane replied, unrepentant.

Sylvie’s eyes were swinging between Isobelle and Gwen, taking in everything and revealing very little. “Perhaps he is merely the least of all the evils awaiting this year’s dragon sacrifice.”

“Anyone’s better than Sir Ralph,” Jane agreed, wrinkling her nose.

“Sir Orson is a good man, is he not?” Hilde chipped in, with the air of one reviving an old argument. “Isobelle has known him since she was small, and there is something to be said for familiarity.”

Isobelle shrugged noncommittally. “I wouldn’t mind being married off to Sir Gawain,” she said airily, before letting her gaze slide toward Gwen’s, merriment making it sparkle. “He’s a dreamboat.”

Gwen ducked her head to study the contents of her cup, doing her best to look merely demure instead of utterly rattled. She was used to the twinge of disappointment she felt whenever a pretty girl started talking about the boys she fancied, but the compounded confusion in this situation made her body tense.

Is it still jealousy if the girls are swooning over my alter ego? she wondered, raising her cup for a sip to cover her uncertainty. In her haste, she accidentally took a somewhat larger swallow than she intended to and braced herself for a burned tongue—only to choke, gasping, “Oh, fuck!”

The liquid in the cup was not tea.

At least, not only tea.