She would lose them right now if she sat thinking any longer! Lady Elianora was still too close behind. Those dukes and their knights wouldn’t give up hunting for them, either.

So Cordelia lumbered back up onto all four padded paws, groaning with the pain of the effort.

She had been waiting all her life to explore outside the forest. Now she picked up one paw at a time and forced herself onto the rough, scarred, and broken earth, aiming for those bare hills in the far distance and pulling the heavy cedar chest behind her.

It was almost three hours later, and early evening, when the bumping of the cedar chest against the ground suddenly changed. It was rocking back and forth behind her now, jerking against the makeshift harness and yanking hard. Muffled voices sounded inside.

Finally. Her triplets were awake.

The bubbling feeling that stirred up inside her felt as much like dread as like relief.

She could still pretend she hadn’t noticed—

“Cordelia!” they both yelled at once.

“Grr!” Growling with frustration, Cordelia’s furry body tipped to a halt on the dry, cracked ground. She would have stayed in bear form to avoid any awkward questions, but she needed human fingers to unstrap the harness and manage the big key in its lock. She turned it carefully until it clicked—

And they had her.

“Thank goodness!” Rosalind surged upward, flinging open the lid. “I thought I’d choke in there. Giles’s stink—”

“My stink?” Giles’s red head popped up behind her. “I’m not the one who—oh.” He blinked at the vast brown earth around them. “Where are we? Where’s Grandmother?”

“We’re not in the forest anymore.” Rosalind frowned. “Did those soldiers reach Grandmother’s house after all? Did she send us ahead while she fought them off?”

Cordelia opened her mouth … then shut it again. There was too much. She couldn’t possibly sum it all up, and her throat was too parched to talk comfortably anyway.

Rosalind was already clambering out of the chest, stepping carelessly across Giles and ignoring his grunts of protest along the way. “You could’ve at least taken the time to wake me first.” She landed on the ground and put her hands to her waist, stretching out her back with a grimace. “I’m bruised all over from being rattled around in there. Couldn’t you have tossed in a pillow or two?”

“You had a pillow, Ros.” Still crouching in the crate, Giles cranked his neck from side to side. “I was the one stuck on the bottom with you bumping across me all the way.”