She sighed as she sat down, folding the coarse skirts of her smock around her. “My mother said, in the old days, they all had to listen to the king or queen … but that ended decades ago, back when the Raven Crown first broke. Now it doesn’t even matter which duke or duchess grabs the throne for their family. The others are always ready to knock them off and start the bloodshed all over again. We’re just the pieces that get smashed along the way.”

A look came over Giles’s face that Cordelia knew only too well. He was coming up with a new song, no doubt something grand and hopelessly melancholy, his very favorite type. “So the dukes of Arden and Lune”—he glanced sidelong at his sisters—“are fighting together for one possible heir to the Raven Throne? But the duchess of Solenne and the dukes of Breville and Mordaunt all want a different heir so that they can seize power for themselves instead? And it’s all doomed to epic tragedy forever?”

Cordelia glared at him through slitted eyes. “Don’t even think about singing,” she hissed.

There was nothing grand or ballad-worthy about a war that broke apart the land and stole people’s homes to fight over a throne. More than that—

“Our father was killed in one of those battles,” she muttered, “before we were even born. Our older brother’s father was killed in another.”

Both of her triplets jerked around to gape at her. She hunched her shoulders against the look of shock on Giles’s face. She hadn’t been keeping Connall’s story a secret from the others; she simply hadn’t had the chance to share all of it with them yet.

Wings itched to explode from her shoulder blades and fly her away. She dug the fingers of her left hand into her legs to hold herself down as she shoved the bread at Giles to share. “What about Raven’s Nest?” she asked Tilda. “Where is that?”

“That wasn’t just a strange jest earlier?” Tilda’s frowning gaze lifted from her hands. “Raven’s Nest is a fairy tale. A legend.”

“Oh, really?” Giles perked up, stuffing a chunk of bread into his mouth and handing the rest to Rosalind. “Please do tell us, then. I love legends!”

“You only want to write more songs.” Rosalind ripped the remaining bread in half. “But if this means we don’t actually have to go questing after mythical nonsense—”

“No,” said Cordelia. “It’s a real place. We just need to find it.”