“Why are you laughing?” Isobelle snapped. “Why aren’t you chasing down the dragon yourselves?”
It was Sir Ralph who replied. “Because there is no need. It has seen the castle, it has assessed the threat we pose, and it will not likely return. This is not the same place it knew centuries ago, and it is old enough and wise enough to understand that. It would not have come at all, save that the reopening of the mine awakened it.”
“Indeed,” Lord Whimsitt agreed. “We will abandon the mine again, which has served its purpose, and the dragon may simply go back to sleep.”
“Are you insane?” Isobelle felt like she was standing outside her own body, watching herself stare at them all in disbelief. “All these knights, here for the Tournament ofDragonslayers, and there’s a girl you won’t even allow among you out there, heading for the dragon on her own, to stand between it and yourpeople?”
Sir Ralph rolled his eyes. “She has saved us an execution, is all.”
Whimsitt nodded in agreement. “We will declare the tourney in Sir Orson’s favor and try to forget any of this happened.” A wave of his hand indicated Orson sitting a couple of spots along the table from Whimsitt himself.
Her friend gazed at the map in front of him and didn’t look up. The tips of his ears were red, though, a sure sign she’d learned to read when they were small.
Guilt.
“Sir Orson,” she repeated slowly. Everything had happened so quickly after Sylvie had come to shake her into action that she had not stopped to think about who else could have betrayed Gwen to Lord Whimsitt.
“He has conducted himself admirably,” Lord Whimsitt went on. “And it is very much apparent that the sooner you are safelymarried and out of trouble, the better.”
Isobelle scarcely heard him, her eyes still on Orson, a flush of rage rising up her throat, across her cheeks, a burning fire she could barely contain within her. “You,” she said, her voice a thin, taut wire. “It wasyou.”
Orson finally lifted his head, the chiseled jaw squared, the blond hair as charmingly tousled as ever, his eyes meeting hers. “Yes.” His voice was soft, but there was no apology in it.
With a wordless sound of fury, Isobelle’s control broke and she lunged for him.
He caught her, gripping her arms tightly and bringing his mouth to her ear. “Izzie, stop it. I had to. Last night at the ball, what you said... if he found out in front of the whole county, he might’ve had her killed on the spot. I did it for you—I did what was best foryou.”
Isobelle went still, panting for breath. “How convenient that deciding what was best formeearnedyouthe money in my dowry.”
Orson’s hold slackened, and she staggered free of his grip.
There was a tale Isobelle once heard as a child. It was about a great ruler who claimed to be dressed in the finest of clothes—silks and furs that only the worthiest could see. None of his subjects wanted to admit they couldn’t see them, so they all pretended he wasn’t naked. Until a child called out the truth, and nobody could pretend anymore.
She felt like she was living in that story now, looking around at the knights in their war room. Suddenly she was seeing all their finery and pageantry for what it really was, and she couldn’t unsee it.
“Little boys playing knights,” she murmured distantly, a memory overtaking her. “Afraid to be undone...”
She was back in Ellsdale, upstairs at Gwen’s house on the night of the dragon bonfire.
Gwen’s fingers had worked the lacings on her dress free, and they’d talked softly, to keep from noticing how close they stood. They’d been talking, joking—but also not joking—about the work that the world required of women so that men could ride out into adventure and become heroes.
The more I think on it, the more questions I have about that system, Isobelle had said. And then, as Gwen kept pulling on her lacings:Don’t bring it all the way undone, or it’s tricky to put back together again.
The system, or the laces?Gwen had laughed.
Both, Isobelle had whispered.
But itwasundone. Isobelle had tugged too hard at the laces, and now she knew she’d never be able to put the world back together the same way.
Now, as Isobelle scanned the gathered men—Orson’s reddened but resolute face, Whimsitt’s darkly angry countenance, Ralph’s predatory, possessive eyes—she realized one more thing: she didn’twantto put it back together.
Last night she had begged Gwen to run away with her, thinking it was the only way to escape their cage—that they had to bend its bars and somehow slither out between them, flee beyond the reach of their jailers.
But the cage wasn’t the ballroom, or the castle, or even the county of Darkhaven—the cage was apartof her, something driven into her by every word and glance and deed of those around her, by every breath she took while accepting she was theirs to keep.
“We live inside cages of your design.” Isobelle’s voice summonedevery gaze in the room to fix on her face. “Little boys with wooden swords, and cages that hold us as long as we think we belong inside them. Even when I tried to rebel, I did it within the confines of those bars. I went looking for a champion to keep your knights from claiming me, and in doing so, I agreed you had the right to give me away.”
“I haveeveryright,” Whimsitt snarled. “You think these swords at our belts are toys, girl? That your privilege protects you if you defy your lord?”
