No. I’m not! I won’t be! I have a family! She stumbled backward, tripping over all four long legs.

Her triplets both turned at her movement. Their flat, identical expressions halted her midtangle, her mind still racing in panicked, useless circles.

“You win,” said Giles grimly. “We’re going to Raven’s Nest, because you’re our sister and we want to trust you. But once we get there, you have to tell us everything. That is the only bargain that either of us will agree to.”

He stalked off to wash his face and hands in the stream, while Rosalind strode in the opposite direction to stand guard without a word … and the delicate white starflowers waved in the morning breeze, a silent but unmistakable reminder.

Even the land knew that Cordelia didn’t really fit in with the others, no matter how hard she tried to hide.

She stayed in horse form for the rest of that morning, even when they stopped for rests. Neither of her triplets asked her to change back. They only spoke to each other. They barely even looked at her.

It was exactly what she’d wanted. No arguments. No interference. She didn’t have to share any terrifying truths.

If she had been a wolf, she would have bitten them. Hard!

She trotted instead on long, strong legs, hooves pounding against the rutted dirt roads that stretched past abandoned farms and watchtowers. Half the crops had been left rotting in the fields, while burned-out husks of stone buildings rose like skeletons nearby. Rosalind’s legs clamped tighter and tighter around Cordelia’s back with every new wreck that they passed, while Giles hummed a low, unhappy melody, gangly legs twitching in tempo with his wordless tune of discontent.

From time to time, his voice echoed around them from random angles as he practiced more of the sorcery he’d managed in the forest—but at least half the time, the sound faded within seconds. The rest of the time, it didn’t emerge at all.

“It’s no use!” Panting hard, he slumped over Cordelia’s neck. “I can’t do it on command. I should have stuck with Mother’s training after all!”

At that, Cordelia snorted grumpily through her muzzle. Atop her back, Rosalind made just as skeptical a sound. “You always said you’d dry up into a husk if we didn’t let you spend enough time singing. Remember?”

“It’s true,” he mumbled dolefully, “but at least then I’d have some way of being useful. Cordy can turn herself into a lion. You know how to fight with weapons. I don’t even have a lute here to mistune! What am I supposed to do the next time we’re attacked if I can’t figure out how to use my magic? Sing a bunch of soldiers into giving up?”