But Mitch must have understood; part of that small-town shorthand that I wasn’t privy to yet. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He sighed. “Still think it would be good for him.” With another exaggerated eye roll, he wandered off down the aisle, giving out more fist bumps and posing, basically working the kilt as much as he worked the room.

Stacey shook her head as we watched Mitch go. “Y’all really should be nicer to Simon. He’ll grow on you, I promise.”

I snorted again. It was easier to do this time, but being strapped in took getting used to. It was rigid. Even though my body moved inside it, the bodice itself had steel bones running through it so it didn’t bend much. It was like a cage around my torso. I’d adjusted to surviving on sips of air, but I already felt like I hadn’t taken a good deep breath in years. Now that it was on my mind, panic rose in my lungs. I was suffocating. I wanted to tear off the fabric and metal cage around my ribs and breathe.

By force of will I calmed myself down. I wasn’t suffocating. I was wearing a tight bodice. That was all.

Stacey noticed my distress. “Hey. You’re okay. I know, it’s weird at first, but don’t worry. It gets easier. How about we go outside and watch the fighting? You need to move around some, and get used to wearing it.”

“So Mitch is fighting? While wearing that kilt?” That would be enough to distract me from this suffocating death trap I was wearing.

“Oh, yeah. Why do you think I keep coming back every year?”

She didn’t have to ask a second time.

Outside, the heat of the late-June morning had started to kick in. I followed Stacey out of the auditorium, past the singers harmonizing in the foyer, then out the double doors and around the side of the building. There was a pavilion about fifty yards away with picnic tables, probably a popular place for students to eat lunch when the weather was nice. Some of the picnic tables had been commandeered by the tech crew, where they cut and sanded various lengths of lumber, while others were busy with paintbrushes.

Stacey waved at one of the techs, who waved a greeting back in our direction. Past the tables, in the center of a field, a group of men and women milled around in twos and threes. Most of them were armed in one way or another, with everything from convincingly real-looking swords to throwing daggers. One young man wielded a quarterstaff easily twice his height. They conferred in small groups, and occasionally one would brandish a weapon and attack at a ridiculously slow speed, working on the timing of the fight. My theatre classes in college had included stage fighting, so the sight stirred a memory in me.

“So what is this exactly? It’s not the joust—that’s on horses, right?”

“Yeah.” Stacey looked amused. Okay, maybe Simon had a point. Maybe I could be a little more informed. “Yeah, that’s on horses. No, this is the human chess match.”

“Okay . . .” That didn’t clear things up. What did fighting have to do with chess? I wanted to ask, but I’d already used up my stupid question quota for the day with the one about the joust.

Then I spotted Mitch. Green and blue plaid kilt, gray T-shirt, heavy Doc Martens–looking boots strapped over his calves. He’d been wearing running shoes earlier. He stood with his back to us, eclipsing whoever he was talking to from my view. Then they separated, and started circling each other slowly with swords drawn.

He was fighting Simon. That hardly seemed fair. Mitch had almost half a head on the guy. They didn’t seem evenly matched for a fight of any kind.

They moved in slow motion, talking to each other as one thrust, one parried. Mitch leaned in with his sword, Simon blocked it with an exaggerated motion as he spun away. Then they stopped moving, went back to talking for a few moments before they dropped their swords and Mitch went in for an uppercut that Simon caught in both hands, twisting both their bodies as he turned the defensive move into an elbow to the jaw (well, about six inches from the jaw; none of their blows were even close to landing on each other).

My skepticism must have shown on my face, because Stacey leaned in. “It’ll look a lot better when we’re at Faire and they’re doing it in real time and in full costume.”

“Man, I hope so.” Because right now they looked like two drunks trying to remember how to fight. The fact that they were armed, albeit with ancient weapons, made the prospect even more frightening.

Stacey squinted at me. “You feel okay?”

“Sure.” But once she mentioned it, I had to admit I felt a little off out here in the sun. Not sick, not dizzy, just . . . off. I moved my arms experimentally. “Are my hands supposed to feel tingly?”

“No. You’re laced up too tight.” She tugged the bow on my bodice loose and pulled on the strings. “It’s been long enough, let’s go ahead and get this off.” I gasped as it loosened a fraction, and I was able to take a deeper breath. It was delicious. “We’ll make sure to cinch it a little less next time. Don’t want you passing out.”

“That would be bad,” I agreed. The relief as the garment came off, the rush of blood back to my extremities, the relaxing of my flesh, the ability to take a good deep breath again, all felt better than the best orgasm I’d ever had. Not that any of mine had been particularly great. Or plentiful, especially in the past couple years. Jake had been busy in law school, then studying for the bar, then dumping my ass and starting his new life . . .

Focus, Emily.

I held the bodice in front of me like a shield, suddenly feeling naked in only the chemise up top, even though you could fit a whole soccer team under my skirts. But I couldn’t deny I was much more comfortable as we settled down in the grass at the top of a small hill that gave us a great vantage point to watch the fighting.

After a few minutes the group of teenage singers from the front hall had wandered outside to join us. By the time the fighters started running through the choreography in real time, we’d all woven a six-foot chain of dandelions like we were in grade school, and I wore a crown of them in my hair. We made a motley group of Renaissance-era cheerleaders, wearing half period costume and half street clothes.

The huzzahs started when two sword fighters got into it. I didn’t know a rapier from a saber, but these two looked impressive, whipping the sharp metal at each other and punctuating their swordplay with a well-placed fake punch. When one fell to the ground, Stacey called out “Huzzah!” in a clear, loud voice, and the singer girls around us picked up the call. So what could I do but follow along? I remembered the first day, hoping to hell I wouldn’t have to speak with an accent or yell out anything weird and period-sounding. Now I sat shoulder to shoulder with my fellow wench with flowers in our hair, cheerfully calling out encouragement to the fighters, sounding completely unlike myself.

Because I wasn’t myself. The girl who wore chemises and sat in the grass was Emma, not Emily. And I was starting to like her.

In the field, it was Mitch and Simon’s turn to run through their fight, and I had to admit it did look pretty amazing sped up. They started out with blades, taking turns having the advantage, until they’d disarmed each other and sent each other sprawling with punches to the jaw and jabs with elbows. Simon was smaller but he proved to be more than a match; the sleeves of his T-shirt strained against biceps I didn’t realize he had. He wasn’t built like Mitch—he was more lithe, almost wiry—yet he was still able to flip the larger man over his shoulder, kilt flying. Dammit, Mitch was wearing bike shorts.

I turned to Stacey, betrayed.

“I know, I know.” She shook her head in sympathy. “It’s a disappointment, right? But this is a family show.”

I grumbled under my breath, turning back to watch as Mitch landed on his feet and spun, throwing a punch that Simon easily blocked. But Mitch used the twist of his body to conceal the action of pulling a dagger from his boot. I heard myself cry out a warning before realizing I’d made a sound. Mitch backhanded Simon, who went to his knees, and the fight ended with Mitch holding his dagger to Simon’s throat. The two men froze in that tableau for a few beats as we all erupted in applause: the other fighters, the girls in the grass, all of us.

“Huzzah!” My hands stung from clapping, but the guys deserved it. That had been an incredible show.

They broke the pose, and Mitch extended a hand to help Simon up. They were both sweating, chests heaving from exertion, and they turned to acknowledge our applause with grins and waves. Mitch noticed Stacey and me sitting on the hill and pointed his massive sword at us in acknowledgment. He leaned over to Simon, saying something, pointing in our direction, and when Simon looked at me the force of his smile hit me in the chest. I smiled back at him in a Pavlovian response. But his grin faltered, as though he didn’t know what to do with mine. He made a gesture that seemed to start as a wave, but at the last second he changed his mind, pushing his hair off his forehead instead.

“So what did you think?” Stacey nudged my shoulder as we walked back into the high school auditorium. “Pretty cool, right?”

“Yeah.” The fights had been incredible to watch, and cheering them on with the girls had made me feel like I was a part of something. But I glanced back over my shoulder at the field, watching Simon talk to a couple of the others. The knowledge that he didn’t want to share his joy with me rankled. What was I going to have to do to prove I was worthy of that smile?