The musicians’ notes rose above the sound of the crowd, and with them came the sinking realization that this wasn’t the song she’d asked for. No Gwen, not yet.
Raise your hand, she coached herself.Put it in his.
Scream, said another voice inside her head.Fight your jailers. Set something on fire.
She raised her hand and placed it in Orson’s, and he led her out to join the dancers.
“Tomorrow,” she said, and though it was only one word, there were whole ballads in it, questions and answers, hopes and fears.
“I don’t know,” he replied, understanding as easily as he’d spotted her twitch. He’d had years of practice. “None of us knows what will happen, Izzie.”
“If it’s Gwen,” she said, her fingers tightening around his—why were her hands so cold?—“what will we do? How will we ever get them to accept...”
Her? That a girl dared step outside the cage they’ve made for her, and...The words wanted to push their way up her throat, to spill out, and so she almost missed the flicker in her old friend’s gaze: something very like hurt.
“Orson, you know you have as good a chance,” she began. “Better, even. I’m just saying—”
“Izzie.” He cut her off with a look, and she fell silent, holding still as he danced a circle around her, each of the women on the floor pinned in place as the men moved. Orson didn’t speak again until they’d joined hands once more. “I don’t think we can,” he said quietly. “I don’t think there’s a way anyone will accept... You need to be ready for that.”
The buzz of thoughts in her head was rising to a roar, her dresswas suddenly too tight, squeezing the breath from her.You accepted her, she wanted to scream.Why can’t you make anyone else do it?
When the music stopped, she stumbled from him without a word, propping up against a table at the edge of the room where drinks were being served.
“That’s what I heard,” the man beside her was saying as she closed her cold hand around a flagon. “Vanished right out of their cell, lock still intact. Makes the sentencing easy, though.”
“They’ll have to catch them first,” another pointed out.
“Please. Bunch of housewives on the run? Castle guard’ll have them back here in no time. And there’s always a slump after something big’s over, like the tourney. Some executions will pick the mood up.”
The women from Aberfarthing.
And come tomorrow, Gwen might face the same fate.
From somewhere nearby came Lord Whimsitt’s laugh, and she spun around to search for him. He was the one who would hold Gwen’s life in his hands tomorrow. He was the one who would see who she really was, and have a choice to make.
Isobelle had to say something, she had todosomething. But her mind was blank. Always, she had thrown herself into a conversation, trusting that the right words would come. But now she couldn’t make herself take even a step toward him. Couldn’t begin to form the first sentence. What she was up against was simply too great.
For the first time in her life, she was speechless.
There was nothing she could do, except watch tomorrow bear down on her like a knight with a lance. No words were coming. No grand idea arriving. Gazing at Whimsitt’s smug, satisfied faceacross the ballroom, Isobelle knew this was a man who would accept nothing less than absolute control.
He held the key to her cell, and he would never let her out. Tomorrow, he would discover Gwen belonged in one, too. And when he did, he wouldn’t simply lock her up.
He would have her killed.
Thosewere the stakes they were playing for.
She felt trapped inside a nightmare—everyone around her laughing and dancing and gossiping, and not a single one of them hearing her scream.
Every noise around her was too loud, every light too bright. All this time, she had thought she and the other ladies were like brightly colored birds, flitting about a beautiful aviary together, not locked in, but rather gorgeously on show. The envy of all.
Now, the gilded edges of the windows, the broad beams across the ceiling, resembled nothing so much as the bars of a cage. All the bright colors were only to distract her from the fact that she was trapped in here, beating her wings helplessly, with no hope of escape.
Tomorrow, whispered Isobelle’s heart.Tomorrow the world ends. And there is nothing you can do to stop it.
And as the musicians struck up the song she’d requested, she turned to find Gwen there in her magical dress, the gold around her lashes glittering like the bars of their cage.
To her horror, Isobelle saw her vision flood with tears. Gwen’s eyes widened, but before she could speak, Isobelle turned and fled. For once not caring if anyone saw her break, she didn’t stop until she’d pushed behind the musicians’ dais and burst through the thick curtains blocking off the balcony.
