Isobelle fought back a laugh. “What I mean is, when you’re smithing, your heart is open. But when I watched you practicing with Madame Dupont . . . I could see your racing thoughts from the other side of the orchard. It wasn’t about feeling, you were trying to think your way through it.”

Gwen made a soft sound, half exhalation, half hmmmm. “Men speak of mastering their emotions,” she replied. “They say women are too emotional to fight, even if we were strong enough to wield a blade.”

“But Astreta can’t do what she does without her emotion,” Isobelle pointed out. “I don’t think you can beat the other knights by trying to be like them—your strength comes from a different place than theirs. Maybe all you need to do is stop trying to block it out, and . . . let it come.”

An answering silence made Isobelle lift her head finally, to find Gwen’s eyes on her, the green glinting with gold in the light of the torches. Gwen’s fair cheeks were flushed, her gaze intent in a way Isobelle had never seen before.

“I have to just let the horses run,” Gwen murmured. “And not corral them.”

Isobelle’s heart was leaping as quickly as it had been when the dragon dancers first coalesced into that mighty, ancient beast. For a wild moment, she wanted to grab Gwen by the hand and race with her back to the stables, to find Achilles, to ride out under the moon and watch her champion joust her way, their way. To see what Gwen could do when she let herself go.

Then a group of children tore by, shrieking with laughter and making them both jump. Gwen blinked and shuddered a breath, and Isobelle looked up with some surprise to realize they were in the middle of a crowd, not on a moonlit field of battle—and, worst of all, they were not far from where the other girls had set up a picnic on the lawn.

For a moment, Gwen looked as though she might say something. But then Hilde spotted them and called out—“Isobelle! Céline!”—and the moment was lost.

Chapter Twenty-Two
The violence is too much for her delicate constitution

It wasn’t until they’d reached the edge of the picnic blanket that Gwen remembered the uncomfortable truth. The last time she’d seen the rest of Isobelle’s friends, she’d been fleeing the room at the prospect of kissing Isobelle in front of them. Her steps flagged, but Isobelle had sped up, and she stood surveying the food the girls had collected in the center of the blanket like a trio of dragons hoarding their treasure.

Too late to run away now.