“I’m just telling the truth!” Of all the triplets, Giles had always had the easiest relationship with their mother. He’d never entered into any of the blazing disputes that had flared between her and Cordelia; never complained as Rosalind had whenever she couldn’t get the weapons that she’d wanted for her training. Now Cordelia heard true heartbreak in the unfamiliar rage that suffused his voice. “You don’t need to pretend anymore. Ros and I know that we’re not your real children. You never cared about us at all.”

“Don’t you dare say that!” Mother straightened away from the wall, eyes flashing. “That’s a lie, and you know it.”

“We heard you say it,” Giles said, “in Cordy’s vision.”

“We saw and we heard,” Rosalind added.

“Wait,” Cordelia breathed. “Wait.” They had all heard what Mother had said. But … “We heard what Alys said, too. Remember? She said it didn’t matter how you two started: that you were Mother’s children from then onward. Just as Connall was Father’s, too.”

How could it possibly be any different? All three triplets had slept curled together from the first night she’d been born. They’d shared the same air. They’d grown in one another’s light.

They were family in every possible way.

“Well, your mother said that couldn’t matter,” Giles snarled back at Cordelia. “She said she’d have to sacrifice the two of us anyway.”

“I was wrong!”

Mother’s words were so unexpected that all three of them fell silent in pure shock.

Mother never admitted to any mistakes. She never gave up on any argument, no matter how small.

Now she said bitterly, “I was a fool. Alys knew better from the very beginning. She let me do what I had to when I was mad with grief and fear, but she understood the truth even before I did.” She shook her head, face drawn and haggard. “I think you—all of you—were less than a week old when I realized exactly what an idiot I’d been. To nurse a child with my own milk—rock them to sleep in my arms—and then leave them to their death?”

She shook her head sharply in dismissal. “I would have cut off my own limbs before I let any of you be hurt, even back then, when I scarcely knew you. Now that I’ve raised you—!” She gave a harsh, broken laugh. “Have I ever given you any reason to believe I cared less about any of you? All four of you, with Connall, are my heart. You are my reason for everything I do! I could never sacrifice any of my children, no matter what the cause.”

“But your mother could,” Cordelia said. “Couldn’t she?”