The village bonfire was in the middle of the square, with a few dozen villagers ranged around it. The golden flames must have been more powerful than the castle bonfires, though, because Isobelle could feel the heat on her skin long before they reached it.
She matched her pace with Gwen’s as they approached, and found herself twisting her hands around her borrowed skirts. She released her grip and tried to smooth out the wrinkles with sweaty palms.
Just now, above the smithy, Gwen’s fingers had struck a spark, and Isobelle had been the waiting kindling. She had stood there as the flames started to creep along her limbs and embers tingled beneath her skin, and if those louts outside hadn’t broken into laughter, hadn’t thrown a bucket of cold water over the pair of them...
With a wrench of effort, she directed her attention to her surroundings, though all she wanted to do was linger in the moment when Gwen had slowly unlaced her dress.
Rapidly calculating all the variables in a new social situation was one of Isobelle’s strong suits, and she distractedly took in the dancers, the musicians, the families eating and drinking, before noticing the two people at the center of the crowd’s attention.
One was a man playing a handheld drum, his fingers rapping out a rhythm so fast the firelight rendered them a blur. He shifted the beat and tempo without warning—and his eyes were on the other figure, a young woman who was circling the fire, dancing.
The girl was uncommonly lovely, with long dark auburn hair down her back, left to sway unbound around her hips, her skin gleaming with a faint sheen of perspiration. Every time the rhythm shifted, so too did her steps—she was matching him, challenging him. It was a sort of duel, she realized. The drum beat fast then slow in compelling syncopation, and Isobelle felt her own heartbeat drumming in time with it.
She jumped when Gwen laid a hand on her arm, startling her free of her trance. Gwen guided her in to join the crowd at the edges of the firelight.
“You have dancers too, I see,” Isobelle murmured as the girl executed a spin.There, she congratulated herself.What a perfectly normal conversational gambit. Well done.
“I was hoping we wouldn’t miss her,” Gwen admitted, and there was a note in her voice that prompted Isobelle to wrench her eyes from the dancer to study her champion. It was hard to tell whether it was the firelight or whether Gwen’s cheeks were also pinker than usual. “I, uh—” She paused, hesitating.
Isobelle’s heart threw in an extra beat, sensing something important was happening. “Yes?”
“I used to have such a crush on her,” Gwen murmured, eyes locked on the dancer. She most determinedly didnotlook at Isobelle to check on her reaction.
Isobelle’s breath caught, and for a moment she couldn’t remember how to make herself draw it in, so the pressure built behind herribs as her heart tried to push its way out. She was pinned in place, gazing at Gwen’s silhouette and blinking slowly as the silence drew out between them.
As if reflecting the way Isobelle’s mind was unravelling this evening, the shifting beat began to lose its cohesion, the dancer to miss a step here or a spin there—and the duel fell apart to the sound of cheers and applause, and with no indication who had won.
The drummer shook out his aching hand, and the dancer let herself fall against the crowd, laughing, and Isobelle made herself lift her hands to clap alongside everybody else. Gwen applauded enthusiastically, still determinedly not looking at her companion.
Isobelle knew she had to say something. Gwen had just shown her a secret piece of herself, and... had she been asking if Isobelle shared that secret, too?
Surely not.
“Gwen,” she found herself saying, stumbling into the conversation before she was ready—before the door Gwen had nudged open between them slammed shut.
“Gwen!” The voice belonged to a large, broad-shouldered young man who came hurrying up to Gwen and Isobelle, and the spell was broken.
In that moment, Isobelle could quite cheerfully have fed that huge boy to a dragon, and offered the beast his hat for dessert.
The newcomer was not bad looking to her practiced eye, with the potential for handsome one day. He had the sort of broad, earnest face that suggested he was still growing into his size and strength. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be back for the bonfire.”
“Oh, hi, Theo,” Gwen said, employing what Isobelle immediately recognized as a Maintaining the Gap voice. There was adistance between these two that Theo wished to close, and Gwen was maintaining by shuffling away. She took a step back now, angling her body to include Isobelle in the conversation.Good move, Gwen. Strength in numbers, when fending them off.
“Is-zie. Izzie.” Gwen recovered from the stumble quite well. “This is Theo. He’s helping out my father while I’m completing my internship. Theo, Izzie’s a maid from the castle.”
“Pleasure,” said Isobelle, carefully moderating her smile and unleashing about a seven out of ten on him, just to see what would happen. It distracted him for a moment, but then he blinked free of her and turned his attention back to Gwen, sending a flash of irritation through Isobelle.
Why had she done that? Gwen clearly didn’t want him, so why was she trying to show Gwen he wasn’t worthy of her?
Isobelle did not believe in lying unless it wasstrictlynecessary, and she tried above all to be honest with herself. And so there was only one conclusion: despite Gwen’s clear lack of interest in Theo’s charms, Isobelle was nonetheless jealous of him. She probed this realization in the same way one probes a loose tooth, poking and prodding for a reaction.
“The dancing’s almost done,” Theo was saying. “But I’m sure we could squeeze one more song out of them.”
Gwen tensed. “I have my friend here, and...”
Theo’s face fell, and Isobelle had to give him credit—his earnest features were perfectly suited to looking utterly crestfallen. “I could give you an update on how things are going at the forge,” he offered. “Tell you how your father’s getting on.”
Isobelle eyed the boy, grudgingly awarding him a point on her mental scoreboard.
