She had Mother’s eyes and her hawklike nose. But silver threaded through her hair, which was perfectly smooth and sleek, not wild and curling like Mother’s. It wasn’t even trying to burst free from the beaded net that held it back.

Giles gulped audibly. “You—what—?”

“Oh, really.” Tsk’ing disapprovingly, she took a gliding step forward, like a swan crossing water. “You poor children. Hasn’t your mother told you anything about me?”

“We thought you were Mother,” Cordelia said hoarsely. “That song—the one you sent us—”

“That was always her favorite lullaby, wasn’t it?” The woman’s full lips curved wider. “She sang it to Connall so often, I knew you’d recognize it, too.”

“But … how?” Rosalind’s stick-club sagged along with her shoulders, her whisper a bare thread of sound.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’ve been waiting for years.” Her voice was rich with satisfaction as she looked from one to another of them. “Finally—finally!—I’ve been allowed to meet my youngest grandchildren.”

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Giles led the way to the cottage while a stunned-looking Rosalind took rear guard. She left her stick-club abandoned on the ground, but she shook her head again and again in tight, wordless jerks, her harsh breaths snorting against Cordelia’s unbound hair.

Cordelia could hear chickens clucking somewhere nearby, but she couldn’t see any of them. All she could see past their grandmother’s commanding figure were those bright white cottage walls, latticed by nearly black beams in a pattern that looked horribly like bars on a grate … a grate just about to close all three of them inside.

She couldn’t have spoken even if she’d wanted to.

As always, Giles more than made up for his sisters’ silence. “Are you really our grandmother? Well, of course you must be. Look at you!” Half laughing, he ran one hand through his thick red hair until it stood up like the feathers of a startled chick. “But why didn’t Mother ever tell us about you? And why didn’t you come with her and Alys and Connall into the forest in the first place? If—”

“Shh.” She shook her head, an indulgent look in her dark eyes. “You’ll have answers to all your questions soon enough. But you children have been lost and alone and afraid, haven’t you? You’ll want food and drink before anything else.”

“Cordelia’s been hurt.” Rosalind spoke abruptly, coming out of her daze. “She has a wound that needs treating.”

Cordelia shook her head sharply—it didn’t need treating, not anymore, and she didn’t want to talk about that at all—but it was too late. Their grandmother’s head tilted, eyes sharpening. “Are you hurt, my dear? I thought that stain on your gown looked like blood. Shall I look at it now? Or would you prefer a bite of breakfast first?”