That voice, Cordelia thought. It belonged to the duke of Arden, not to any of the soldiers who were here—but it did the final trick. Inside her head, the line of figures turned, one after another, to run toward their waiting comrades. One, two, three, four in a row …

Oh no. “One of them is staying here!”

“Seriously?” As Giles’s eyes flew open, the triplets’ voices began to fade in the distance.

“Keep going!” Rosalind ordered, rising up on her haunches. “I’ll handle this one.”

“How? You still don’t have a sword!”

“Just remember,” Rosalind murmured as she adjusted the sword-stick in her hand, “if you let that voice-trick of yours stop, I’ll have five soldiers with real swords to deal with on my own. Keep going!”

Giles groaned as he closed his eyes again. Cordelia was too busy making rapid calculations to say anything at all. If she turned into a bear … no, she would get shot by another arrow before she even finished lumbering down the hill. But if she stayed girl until she and her sister reached that final soldier, and shifted just before Rosalind could try to sword-fight a grown man with that stupid stick …

In one fluid movement, Rosalind leaped to her feet and threw the sword-stick. Cordelia jumped up, panic a wild rush within her—

And saw the single remaining soldier crash to the ground, his sword falling uselessly from his hand. Rosalind’s heavy sword-stick rebounded and fell onto the grass nearby.

She gaped at her sister.

Rosalind gave her a ferocious grin. “You see? Handled. You two should finally learn to have some faith in me! I keep telling you I’m good.” Reaching down, she yanked their triplet to his feet. “Now, run!”

They ran, skidding and stumbling all the way. The soldier ahead was starting to shake his head as he lay on his back, moaning and feeling for purchase on the ground beside him with his eyes still shut. Rosalind’s sword-stick lay on his opposite side. His own long metal sword glinted on the grass by his awkwardly bent legs.

The wall of mist behind him glittered and sparkled in the sun as if it were filled with a million tiny diamonds.

“That is definitely not natural,” Giles panted.

“We’ll get through it.” Rosalind bared her teeth at the mist ahead as if it were just another enemy waiting to be bashed.

“It’ll let us through,” Cordelia promised.

“Barred against anyone without magic or royal blood …”

Cordelia might not know exactly whose blood she carried, but every one of the triplets had been born with some kind of magic … and that hook in her chest was reeling her tighter with every breathless moment.

Raven’s Nest wanted them in its grip.

It was waiting for them.