“I think we should play Hast Thou Ever,” Sylvie said over her without skipping a beat, and still watching Gwen. “Can you think of a better way to get to know each other, Céline?”

Gwen’s instincts told her to brace, to find firmer footing than plush carpeting and a sagging divan that threatened to swallow her, and get her hands on some sort of weapon. “Hast Thou Ever?” she echoed, uncertain.

Sylvie’s eyes widened. “Oh, have you never played before? We take turns asking questions, like—I’ll go first—hast thou ever been alone in a room with a man who wasn’t related to you? And if you have, then you take a drink, like so.” She lifted her cup for a demure sip, then glanced over at Jane expectantly.

“It’s only one sip,” said Jane with a wink, lifting her cup. Her rounded cheeks were already pink. “Even if you could justify the whole bottle.”

Gwen could feel icy fingers of dread starting to creep up her spine. It was one thing to have memorized the rules of who she was supposed to be in this situation. It was another thing entirely to figure out which rules she was meant to have broken in order to fit in with these ladies.

Sylvie could not have picked a worse game for Gwen.

Gwen snuck a glance at Isobelle, hoping to take some kind of cue there. Gwen had been alone with men—they came every day to the forge to make orders and pick up mended equipment. But that wasn’t the sort of “alone” Sylvie was talking about.

Hilde had set her cup down on her saucer, making Jane snort into her uisce and pat her hand sympathetically. Isobelle made a show of setting her cup down, only to wink at the girls and lift her cup at the last minute.

Gwen found herself staring at the cup, distracted from the puzzle she was meant to be solving for herself in favor of a far more compelling one. She’s been alone with men?

Isobelle’s face betrayed nothing but cheerful enthusiasm for the game, as if she hadn’t realized yet how dangerous this sort of conversation was for Gwen, living as she was a double life.

No, a triple life. Gwen the blacksmith’s daughter, Sir Gawain the knight, and Céline, his naive sister. Good god, this was a terrible idea.

But Isobelle’s dimples were rigidly on display. Whatever she was feeling—whatever concerns she might have about the game they were playing—she wasn’t showing it.

“Not you either, Céline?” asked Hilde mournfully.

Gwen blinked, then looked down at her cup. She hadn’t taken a drink. “My . . . my brother never would have let me hear the end of it if I had,” she said finally.

“I nominate Isobelle to ask the next question,” Sylvie said lightly.