That was the flaw at the center of everything they had planned, and it is worth naming, because it is the flaw at the center of every scheme like theirs.

Freya’s entire threat — what will people say, what will our friends think — only works on a person who has agreed to let other people’s opinions run her life.

It is a weapon made entirely of a victim’s own fear of judgment, and it has no power at all against someone who has decided she would rather be talked about than trapped.

Freya had spent her whole life terrified of what the audience thought; she assumed everyone else lived inside that same terror.

She could not conceive of a daughter-in-law who would look at the prospect of the neighbors whispering and simply not care — who would weigh a lifetime of being someone’s servant against some gossip at the club and choose the gossip without a second’s hesitation.

When she shrieked about reputation on that porch, she was aiming a gun that only fires if the target agrees to be afraid of it.