Gwen drew a deeper breath and felt Isobelle do the same, feeling her body shift against her and taking her cue from it. Gwen drew back enough to cup Isobelle’s cheek and tip her face up.
‘This power you have,’ Gwen murmured. ‘This way you have of persuading people to follow you, to believe in your admittedly often mad ideas … it’s an unbelievable strength, to be sure, and one of the things that I … I admire most about you.’
Isobelle sniffed and started to look away, but Gwen stroked her cheek with her thumb and exerted a gentle pressure to summon her gaze back.
‘But it isn’t all you are, Isobelle,’ Gwen whispered. ‘It’s only a fraction of what you have in you.’
Isobelle stopped trying to avoid her gaze, staring at her with a strange expression, lip caught between her teeth. As if Gwen had suggested she was capable of turning invisible or sprouting wings and taking to the air – and as if she was considering those things possible for the first time.
An embarrassed cough in the doorway made both girls startle apart, wiping at their cheeks.
Henry stood there, a bundle of cloth in his arms and his face crimson. ‘Um, begging your pardons, miss, sir, my ladies, um … The shouting had stopped, so I thought … I can come back.’
He started to turn away and Gwen got herself under control. ‘No, Henry, it’s fine … what is it?’ She took a better look at him, noticing that his skin was whiter than usual, and his eyes were deeply shadowed. He looked exhausted. Like he hadn’t slept for a week. ‘Are you okay?’
Henry hugged his bundle to his chest. ‘I wanted … I wanted to say sorry.’ His gaze fixed to the floorboards in front of him as if he were an actor in a play and his lines were written there. ‘For not being braver that night.’
Gwen’s heart gave a sudden, searing stab. ‘Henry,’ she said softly. ‘You’d just watched that thing destroy your ship. I should never have asked that much of you.’
He shook his head. ‘All the same, Sir Gwen. I saw everything that happened – saw where that thing grabbed you, where you dropped your sword. I rounded up some of the lads, those with the strongest stomachs, and we’ve been dragging the bottom under the pier, and …’
Henry stepped forward and laid the bundle on the foot of the bed before retreating back to the doorway as if the bed might send out ruffled tentacles to grab him.
Isobelle scooted forward on her knees, and when Gwen didn’t move, reached out to twitch the cloth away. Beneath it was the gleam of steel, freshly polished and sharpened – her breath caught.
Into the silence that followed, Henry said, ‘You haven’t stopped trying to fight for us.’ And before he turned to flee, vanishing from the doorway, he muttered, ‘We won’t stop fighting for you.’
Gwen’s body had become so accustomed to fear and sadness that for a moment she could not understand the feeling that rose up within her like something buoyant bobbing to the surface of the sea. She reached out and stroked the sword with her fingertips, its cool touch a reminder of all those years spent with a blade in her hand and dreams of glory in her heart.
She thought of Madame Dupont, her combat instructor in Darkhaven, and of that night before her first joust in the Tournament of Dragonslayers. Flee or fight, the choice would be inviting something in, a weight she could not easily shed. Dupont had said that whatever happened, she would know what choice she made.You will remember who you are. The woman’s strong tones echoed in her ears.
This is my fight, Gwen thought, the certainty falling into place.This is the sword I made for it.
How long she stared at the sword she didn’t know, but when she lifted her head, Henry was gone, and Isobelle’s eyes were waiting for hers, carrying a strange mix of hope and fierceness. A wordless current passed between them, a knowing that neither of them had to speak aloud.
Gwen swallowed hard. ‘I’ll go with you and Olivia on the ship, if that’s what you still want.’
Isobelle exhaled shakily. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Gwen’s hand curled around the sword’s hilt. ‘Olivia will never let you stay, or let either of us out of her sight. She has some reason for wanting you out of here that goes beyond being your maid and your friend.’
Isobelle’s gaze sharpened, growing distant in a way that Gwen had grown to recognise with a now familiar mix of admiration and dread. It meant that she had had … an Idea.
‘I’ve always wanted to see if I could con a con,’ Isobelle said coolly, though Gwen could see how much it cost hernot to be able to trust Olivia, of all people, the one person on whom she had always depended. ‘But when we get past her, what then? I don’t know where to even start when it comes to Bingleton and the tower.’
Gwen swung her feet down onto the wooden floor, finding herself unsteady until Isobelle joined her and offered her arm. ‘I’ve got an idea about that,’ she said quietly, her mind spinning with all the texts on witchcraft she’d been reading. ‘But you’re going to have to trust me.’
Isobelle curled her other hand over Gwen’s where it rested on her arm. ‘Always.’
32
Let’s go storm the castle
Isobelle felt quite sure she could sell tickets to watch Gwen attempting to fit all her clothes back into the wooden chest from whence they had come. Gwen muttered imprecations at a particularly lovely green dress, trying to roll it up to reduce its size, before surrendering and simply stuffing it in on top of the others, jamming it down with her fist.
Hiding a faint smile, Isobelle elected to become involved. ‘Allow me,’ she said, gliding forward. ‘You really must rest.’
‘How did it get in there in the first place?’ Gwen muttered, though she subsided onto the bed, folding her arms across her chest, and swinging her legs up.
