A small part of her mind raised its hand for her attention, attempting to lodge an inquiry as to whether the relevant part of that sentence was definitely the bit pertaining to the nobleman.

Could it have been the dare that was the problem? The game? The audience?

But it had been a very long day, and pushing her way through the fog of that question felt like trying to locate a landmark without any idea of the direction in which it lay, or even what it looked like.

And so, instead, she stayed where she was as the sun sank below the horizon and velvety darkness fell all around her.

She was still sitting there, gazing at Gwen’s door, when Olivia came to find her.

Isobelle took one look at her maid’s face and sat up straighter. “Oh dear,” she said. “What’s happened?”

Olivia walked over, leaning down to offer her a hand. Isobelle took hold, and Olivia’s strong grip pulled her up.

“Last rounds of the qualifiers tomorrow,” Olivia said. “And then comes the dragon bonfire, and then the start of the tournament proper.”

“I know, I’m looking forward to it,” Isobelle replied, enunciating her words as carefully as she could and resting one hand casually on the balustrade to make sure she didn’t wobble. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s Lord Whimsitt,” Olivia replied grimly.

“What’s he done now?”

“He’s worried about interlopers in the tournament, that the wrong sort of people might weasel their way in for the money. The head steward has announced that every entrant will be required to provide formal patents of nobility, with seals attached.”

Isobelle felt all the heat draining from her face, leaving something very cold in its wake. “But we don’t have those for Gwen.”

“No,” Olivia agreed. “We don’t.”

When the sunlight crept across Isobelle’s face in the morning, slowly dragging her toward wakefulness, the patents of nobility weren’t the first thing she thought of.

The first thing she wondered was why the inside of her mouth felt and tasted like a hessian sack. The second thought—much slower, trickling into the cracks in her consciousness until it had flooded her entire mind—was of Gwen.

She had tossed and turned until shortly before dawn, rehearsing conversations with Gwen, trying to plan out every way their next encounter might turn.

She owed Gwen an apology, of that much she was sure.

She just wished she were entirely clear on what the apology was for. She felt a strange sense of loss—the uncomfortable feeling that something between them had gone, and she couldn’t see how to get it back when she wasn’t even sure what it had been.