Her back legs sank down into a crouch. Her whole body prepared to spring.

They turned together.

She leaped.

She wasn’t aiming to attack. Her fierce bark was a warning any animal would recognize: Stay away! Even the fiercest bear or wild boar would take the hint and back away.

But the man lunged forward instead, his sharp spear arcing toward her neck …

And the tip of the woman’s arrow sliced through Cordelia’s side, sending her spinning and tumbling through the air.

It hurt so much! She barely heard the piercing howl of pain that erupted from her throat.

She landed hard on the ground. The man took a quick stride to follow her—

And Giles’s voice sang out from twenty feet away. “Hey! Over here! Aren’t you looking for us?”

What was he doing? Cordelia fought to pull herself upright. She had to stop the knights from finding him and Rosalind, no matter what it took …

But both of the knights were already running, following Giles’s voice through the trees as it rose, high and mocking. “Can’t you even hear me? Over here!”

Cordelia whimpered as she dragged herself to her feet. The rich scent of blood filled her nostrils. The knights had disappeared into the trees. Pain stretched jaggedly through her side as she stumbled heavily after them.

“Cordy, stop!” It was Rosalind who hissed just behind her and Rosalind’s hand that grasped the fur around her neck to halt her when Cordelia tried to keep on moving anyway …

But Giles caught up with them only a moment later. “It’s all right, Cordy! I’m here! I’m safe, and it worked. I did it!” He let out a laugh of shocked delight.

At the same moment, in the distance—much farther than before—his voice sang out again, turning high and plaintive. “Isn’t anyone there? We’re so helpless! We can’t protect ourselves! Won’t anybody come and save us?”

Cordelia shook her head hard, trying to fix it. None of her senses matched up anymore … and her brother sounded like a fool!

“Good news,” Rosalind told her gruffly. “Giles figured out how to control his magic all on his own.”

“… And it was my greatest performance yet,” Giles finished with deep satisfaction.

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Shaking her head at both of them, Rosalind peered down at the wet, matted fur around Cordelia’s arrow wound. “Too bad you didn’t figure out how to fight at the same time. What were you thinking, attacking two armed knights without any training?”

It was too much. Cordelia shifted back into her own body with a growl of fury that turned into a horrible moan of pain. She couldn’t help curling tightly around the wound in her side, but she glared up fiercely at her rough-handed sister from the ground. “I was trying to protect you two! If you had only let me …”