“We’ll all go hungry soon enough if we aren’t careful,” Margery muttered. Still, she shifted aside to make room. “Just don’t give them any of our meat. We don’t have enough of that to spare on outsiders.”

Tilda sighed, but she didn’t argue. “Here.” She reached into the closest basket and ripped off a thick chunk of bread. “You can carry this.” She handed it to Cordelia, then bent to fill her cracked china jug from the tall bucket of water that stood by the baskets. “This’ll have to do for now.”

It took all of Cordelia’s patience to wait until they had left the other girl behind before she let more of her questions pour out. “What do you mean, the dukes stole your homes? Don’t they have their own homes to live in?”

“Oh, they wouldn’t dream of living in our little farms! But they wanted somewhere to house their armies. And according to them …” Tilda let out a humorless laugh, her stride lengthening. “They were doing it all for our own good. The duke of Lune’s woman told us we were honored to pack up our things and begone so we could provide them with a safe base to invade the forest and protect us all from the wicked enchantress.”

“What? Why?” Cordelia scowled, hurrying to keep up. “She wasn’t attacking you.”

“Of course not!” Tilda lowered her voice to an angry murmur as they neared the campfire where the other children slept and where Giles and Rosalind sat, chatting softly to each other. “We’re not fools. We’ve always been safe from her as long as we didn’t venture into her forest. They don’t care about our safety. It was just a useful excuse. And that duke’s messenger may have promised all sorts of rewards if we catch any of the witch’s terrible demons trying to escape”—she rolled her eyes meaningfully—“but we all know what’s really coming.”

She handed the water jug to Rosalind, her free hand fisting by her side. “Now their armies are sprawled across our fields, ruining all of this year’s crops, and we’ll never get our own homes back again. They’ll be divided among the dukes’ knights as rewards for their loyalty.”

Rosalind straightened with outrage. “That’s not fair! They can’t just steal people’s farms and livelihoods! A true knight would never—”

“A true knight? Who’s ever seen one of those?” Tilda let out a scornful laugh. “I don’t know what strange country you three come from beyond that awful forest, but the men and women who rule this kingdom don’t give a turnip for knightly honor. All they care about is power … and none of us has enough of that to fight back against them.”