A spark of gold glinted around her neck, half-hidden beneath her hair. Mother had never worn necklaces before. Why would her captors give her jewelry?

That isn’t jewelry. Cordelia sucked in her breath, squeezing down hard on her triplets’ hands. That was a collar pinching tightly around Mother’s neck—the collar that Connall had mentioned in his summoning.

Air hissed furiously through Rosalind’s teeth.

“So that’s how they stopped her reaching out to us.” Giles’s voice was low and sad.

Cordelia could sense it, too: the sickly, burning pulse of that tight collar as it held Mother’s magic trapped, helpless within her body. No wonder she looked so drawn and sick.

It was more than wrong to see Mother without her power. It was wicked.

But that collar couldn’t keep her body still. Mother lunged forward, eyes widening and hands flying up to clench the stone wall below the window. “Giles? Is that you?” she asked hoarsely.

For once, Giles didn’t utter a single word. Cordelia couldn’t see him in her vision, but she could hear him—and his quick breaths sounded jagged. Broken.

She said as steadily as she could, “It’s all of us. And, Mother …” She took a deep, steadying breath. “We know.”

“Cordelia?” Mother’s eyes narrowed as she rose on tiptoes to reach higher toward the barred window, still hopelessly far out of her reach. “What are you talking about?”

“We know why you never answered any of our questions about the past,” Cordelia said quietly. “We saw it all: how Giles and Rosalind first came to us … and what you planned to do to them.”

Mother’s jaw dropped open. She stumbled backward, her hands falling to her sides. “Cordelia, I … children …”

Head bowing, she reached out one trembling hand to balance herself against the curving stone wall. Mother had always been a pillar of strength, fierce and sure and infuriatingly immovable. Now she looked years older and suddenly horribly uncertain.

“Have you even been eating?” Giles’s voice shook on the words. “Or have they been starving you in there?”

Mother was thinner than she had been, Cordelia realized. It was part of what made her look so frail and breakable.

She shook her head without looking up. “I’ve eaten,” she said dully. “I have to make myself eat to stay strong.”

“Strong for what?” There were tears choking Rosalind’s voice now. “You’re a prisoner. They’ve trapped your magic. What can you do anymore?”

“What do you think?” Mother’s head swung up, her gaze ferocious even as tears sparkled like fallen stars in her dark eyes. “I have to stay strong so I can escape and find all of you! I need to get free to protect you.”

“You mean you need to protect Connall and Cordelia,” Giles muttered.

“Giles!” Impatience rang in her voice as she dashed one dirty hand over her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”