Hero

by Alethea Kontis

  “Did you stop the spell?”

  Among other things. “After breaking the world, I felt I had no choice.”

  “Fitting, then, that your flesh and blood were part of the equation. Fortune favors the blood, you know. I fully believe Luck has always smiled upon our family because of all the Woodcutter blood Jack has spilled into the ether.” Thursday’s lips curved into one of those wry smiles that hid secrets, but Saturday was too tired to let it frustrate her. “Do you feel different, having killed someone?”

  “She was a beast,” said Saturday. “I’ve hunted beasts before.”

  “Not like this, you haven’t, and you know it.”

  Saturday stood up from the warm bath and dunked herself into the cool one. Soap and herbs and dust remnants merged into a film on the surface. “Killing the witch set us all free, including the dragon that slept in the mountain. I should have tried to kill it, too, while it slept, but I didn’t.” And now every bit of damage it did to the countryside would be on her head.

  “You are a warrior,” said Thursday, “not a killer.”

  “The price of adventuring,” said Saturday, mocking her sister. She held her breath and sank beneath the surface of the water again, wishing a part of her soul clean that would never again be pure.

  “So, do you love him?” Thursday asked when she surfaced.

  “The wagon driver?” said Saturday. “We’ve only just met.”

  Thursday reached into the bath and flicked water at her. “Peregrine, you dolt.”

  “I might,” she told her sister. “I haven’t had much time to think about it. We’ve certainly been through a lot together. The place we were kept, the things we’ve seen . . .”

  “Hard to explain to anyone who wasn’t there?”

  Saturday nodded.

  “I know what you mean. The three of you have a special bond now, no matter what your future holds.”

  Saturday nodded again. Thursday no doubt had the same sort of bond with her crew.

  “It’s just . . .”

  “Spit it out,” said Saturday.

  “He was a prisoner up there for how long?”

  “I don’t know,” said Saturday. “Years, probably a decade at least. A long time.”

  “And the first time he’s offered a bath and clean clothes, his only response is to never take his eyes off you,” said Thursday. “Most girls would make a big deal out of that.”

  “I’m not most girls,” said Saturday.

  “Preaching to the choir, sister dearest,” said Thursday. “I just wanted to make sure you knew. Special breeds of stubborn idiots like you and me tend to miss these not-so-subtle clues.”

  Saturday laughed then, because she knew it was true. Peter and Papa teased her enough about her hard head. The memory made her heart ache. Pain shot through her chest. She slipped in the tub and Thursday reached out to her, but she’d already grasped the sides and caught herself.

  “You’re bleeding,” Thursday noted.

  Saturday followed her sister’s gaze to the tip of her finger. Her tight grasp on the lip of the tub had reopened the wound where the brownie had bitten her. She stared at the small droplets of blood welling up out of her unhealed skin. She was no longer indestructible. She’d fulfilled her grand destiny. What was she supposed to do with the rest of her life?

  Thursday tossed a hand towel over the finger and pinched it. “Welcome to the mortal world.”

  The acolytes returned with fresh clothes: shirt, vest, and trousers. They located some ointment and a bandage scrap to knot around Saturday’s finger to stop the bleeding. A new belt was provided, but it felt cheap and empty without a scabbard. She slid the dagger underneath the leather strap on her left side, but it didn’t have the heft of the sword, or her ax. She felt unbalanced.

  “I have a present for you,” said Thursday. Saturday hoped it wasn’t a sword. It wasn’t. What Thursday held out to Saturday was her old messenger bag. She opened it up and checked the contents: a change of clothes, some rags, a small sewing kit, a ball of twine, a canteen, some fishing hooks, three stones Sunday had given her for good luck, and Thursday’s ebony-handled brush . . . little of which would have been much good to her up on the mountain, but all of which set her mind more at ease now. The bag even smelled like her old room.

  “I took the liberty of tossing out all the old hardtack and replacing it.”

  Saturday put the strap over her head and felt the reassuring weight at her side. “Thank you.”

  Thursday winked.

  The Woodcutter sisters followed the acolytes down several hallways and through a garden to the chapel behind the main building. Sunlight spilled in through the stained-glass windows. It fell in patterns of color on the marble floor, like the Northern Lights on the eve of their escape.

  They were the first to arrive in the nave of the chapel, with its intricately carved pews and columns shaped in stone likenesses of the animals dedicated to the Earth Mother. Bear, Cat, Wolf, Serpent: at their heart, they were just pretty rock formations. It was a pity so few had witnessed the natural temple at the Top of the World, so much more organically magnificent than this fabricated, orderly chapel. Saturday felt sure the Earth Goddess would agree.

  The chapel door opened again and Betwixt entered, wearing trousers this time, and naught else but a gleaming pelt of russet fur. Beside Erik was a man who could only have been Peregrine, dressed in hose and a long, double-breasted coat that flared out around his knees, much like the skirts he favored. Saturday might not have known him but for the thinning shock of silver-blue in his shorn hair and the determined look in his eyes as he made his way across the room. Those eyes seemed more greenish-gray than black now. Unlike her, he didn’t give a second thought to the chapel.

  “Is it really you?” she asked softly. Mama had taught her to always whisper on sacred ground. His nose seemed larger, his chin and shoulders seemed squarer, and he wore the runesword at his side with the ease of . . . well . . . an earl’s son. Without saying a word he held his right hand out to her, palm up, revealing the line of blue scar on his wrist that Cwyn had given him. The skin around it was darker than it had been in the mountains, and significantly less green in hue.

  The hand continued up past her cheek to touch her hair. “It’s curly,” he said. The words came from a larger chest, in thicker air, and held no falsetto of pretense. Part of Saturday missed the strange boy who’d teamed up with her in the White Mountains, but the rest of her began to realize how easy it would be to fall in love with the man who stood before her now. She wondered how much more he still had left to change; wondered if the man he’d become could still love a warrior who’d shed blood and unleashed terror on the world.

  She heard the catch in his breath as he discovered her damaged ear, but he said nothing in front of her family.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Rose Red said from the altar. Wolf, who had removed only his hat, stood patiently by her side. “If you would please join me in the sacristy.”

  Saturday scanned the pews once more. Where was Mama?

  They followed the abbess back behind the altar, through a small doorway and into a room few but the most blessed had ever seen. A tall, hooded monk awaited them there.

  Unlike the chapel, the sacristy was plain. Only a few of the gray cinderblocks bore patterns or runes. The windows here were little more than narrow slits; dust played in the shafts of sunlight that sliced through the dusk to the unadorned floor. In the center of the room was an oaken table.

  On the table lay the body of her mother.

  “No!” Saturday tried to run to her mother’s side, but Erik stopped her.

  “Please,” said Rose Red. “Let me explain.”

  Peregrine put a hand on Saturday’s shoulder, and she steeled her nerves. He removed it quickly enough that no one would assume she needed his strength, but he did not move from her side. Betwixt stood before them both, the perfect picture of ease and innocence. Saturday knew better.

  “I put he
r to bed in my cabin on the ship,” said Thursday. “She never woke. She was probably already gone before you were taken.”

  Knowing that didn’t make Saturday feel better.

  “I’ve seen this before,” said Peregrine. He turned to Saturday. “So have you.”

  And so she had. She had seen a body trapped in a similar likeness of death, though it had not been human, nor so well preserved. “She’s under a spell,” said Saturday. “The sleeping death.”

  “She is not the only one,” said Rose Red. “Trix’s mother was the first. Then Teresa, our third sister. Their bodies are being watched over in the vaults.” The hooded monk nodded a silent affirmation.

  “Your twin has fallen as well,” Wolf said gruffly. “Her husband, the Bear Prince, keeps her in a glass coffin at his palace in Faerie.”

  Rose Red clenched a fist but did not break her composure. “Not Snow White.”

  Wolf bowed his head. “Bear bade me come to you and fetch you back to her side.”

  “Wait.” Saturday held up a hand. Her blue-green bracelet caught a ray of sunlight. “The witch on the mountain captured the dragon in order to siphon its power,” she said to her aunt. “Who would want to siphon power from your sisters?”

  The answer was obvious, but Rose Red said it aloud anyway. “Sorrow.”

  “My eldest aunt,” Saturday explained to Peregrine.

  “Your family has a lot of very powerful women,” he replied, and Saturday smiled. She had lamented the same fact many a time.

  “I cannot go back to Faerie,” said Rose Red. “It will be just what Sorrow wants. My strength is here, on this sacred ground, surrounded by the gods to whom I have dedicated my life. If my sister wants to take my power, she will have to come here to get it.”

  Wolf was not happy about her answer, but he accepted it. “I will pass along your condolences.”

  “We will go with you to Faerie,” said Saturday. “We will find this Bear, and collect Wednesday and Aunt Joy, and join forces with them. Sorrow must be stopped.” Saturday had finally found a purpose beyond her destiny. “But first I would like to say goodbye. I didn’t have the chance to before.”

  At Rose Red’s nod, Erik let Saturday cross to Mama’s side. She knelt beside the wooden table and took Mama’s small hand in her large one. The skin was soft, neither warm with life nor cold with death.

  “I’m so sorry, Mama.” There were no tears on Saturday’s cheeks, only the flush of shame.

  She felt a large hand on her shoulder that she did not recognize. She turned her head and noticed the brown sleeve of the monk who stood guard over her mother. “Those of us who are Fate’s playthings often have little choice where our path takes us,” he said. “It’s not your fault, Saturday.”

  The brother’s familiarity annoyed her. How could he assume to know her pain? She stood up and spun around with dagger in hand, not caring a fig for the sacredness of this space. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “Answer her.” Peregrine’s tone was that of an earl and not a simpering witch’s daughter. Beside him, Betwixt smiled with a mouthful of feral teeth. Saturday’s heart welled with pride.

  The monk laughed. “Well, now. Don’t you make quite the trio?”

  Saturday pulled back the cowl to reveal a rugged man with ruddy cheeks, hair like sunshine, and bright blue eyes that twinkled mischievously. Saturday had seen those eyes before.

  In a mirror.

  “Jack?” Peregrine stepped forward. “Is it really you?”

  “Hello, Ladyboy. Good to see you, too.” The two men chuckled into an enthusiastic embrace.

  Saturday sheathed her dagger and put her hands on her hips. So this was the infamous, legendary Jack, sung about in a hundred kingdoms and known in every corner of the world. This was the man she had been mistaken for, the reason she’d been imprisoned and forced to unleash chaos upon the world. The resemblance was oddly striking: it was as if someone had painted a portrait of herself and one of Papa and then muddled them together.

  “No hug for your long-lost brother?”

  Saturday imagined that handsome face wasn’t used to disappointment. She punched the smile right off his chin.

  “That’s my girl!” cried Thursday.

  “I told you we should have introduced them properly,” Erik said to Thursday.

  “Oh no,” said the Pirate Queen. “This is much better.”

  “I was captured because of you!” Saturday yelled at the legend that was her eldest brother. “I almost died because of you! I killed a witch, woke a dragon, lost my sword and my ear, and cut my finger . . . AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT.” Saturday punctuated each sentence with a fist on his tree trunk of a chest, so like their father’s. Jack took every blow in stride until Saturday ran out of accusations, and then he hugged her anyway. Saturday’s feet actually left the ground.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said into her hair.

  “It’s nothing you haven’t done,” she said when he set her back down.

  “I may have vanquished a sorceress or two in my time, but I can’t say I’ve ever bested a demon witch like the lorelei.”

  “You took her eyes,” said Saturday. “I’m sure that was difficult enough.”

  “But I didn’t rescue the damsel or wake a dragon,” he said. “That must have been something to see.” Saturday was secretly pleased to have accomplished something her infamous, back-from-the-dead brother had not.

  “What happened to the eyes?” asked Peregrine.

  “They . . . melted,” said Jack. “It’s how I knew she’d been defeated.” He noticed Saturday’s hand drop back to Mama’s shoulder. “She would be proud of you.”

  “After she gave me a severe tongue-lashing for abandoning her, perhaps. Jack”—addressing her brother by his name still felt strange—“I promised Peter that I would protect Mama. I promised. And I failed.” She had also promised him a wealth of gold and a pretty girl, but Peter would not hold those things against her.

  “I’m sure Mama forgives you for not being there when she fell ill. You were too busy saving the world.” He winked at her. “These things happen.”

  “But what about the dragon?”

  “The price of adventuring.”

  Saturday moved to smack him again. He deflected her arm and kissed her cheek. “Let me worry about the dragon,” he said. “You’ve got other things to do.”

  “So you’re not coming to Faerie with us?” It wasn’t fair to have to leave the legend so soon after having reunited with him. There were so many things to ask!

  “I have to go find my ship,” said Thursday.

  “I should return to Arilland and bring this news to the king,” said Erik. “And someone needs to tell Jack Woodcutter about his wife.”

  And Peter, thought Saturday. Poor, sweet Peter. At least Papa would not have to bear the news alone. “All right, then Peregrine and Betwixt and I will go to Faerie. If that’s all right with you?” she asked Wolf.

  Wolf bowed his head. “It would be my honor.”

  “Saturday,” said Peregrine.

  “Don’t argue. It’s a good plan,” she told him.

  “Saturday, stop. Please.”

  It was the “please” that shut her up.

  “There’s something I have to do.”

  “I know,” she said. “You want to return to Starburn. And we will, in time. But this may be another matter of life and death.”

  From beneath his linen shirt, Peregrine pulled the chain around his neck that held both her ring . . . and another’s. It was then that she realized exactly what he was trying to say to her.

  Peregrine slid her ring-that-was-a-sword off and then refastened the chain around his neck. “I wasn’t supposed to survive.”

  “But you did,” said Saturday. “I saved you.”

  “We saved each other,” he said.

  Those words, the ones she had spoken at the Top of the World before the mountain had exploded, shredded her heart like crystalwings.

  “I
would love nothing more than to kneel at your feet right now, put that ring on your finger, and bind my destiny to yours, whatever that may be. But I cannot.” Peregrine placed the ring in Saturday’s hand and curled her fingers closed around it. “I must keep my promise to Elodie.”

  Saturday could say nothing to this; she would not have respected him if he were the sort of person who did not keep his promises. Peregrine had to leave, and she had to let him. “What if she did not wait for you?”

  “Then I will catch you on the road to Faerie.”

  “And if she did?”

  Peregrine reached out a hand to touch her but let it fall short. “I do not want to say goodbye.”

  “Nor do I,” said Saturday.

  “I will return,” Betwixt told her. “Either way, I will return to you with word.”

  It was the best Saturday could hope for. “Thank you.”

  With polite nods to the rest of the sacristy and a pained look at Jack, Peregrine and Betwixt made their exit.

  Saturday stared at her palm and tried to summon power to her like she had in the mountain. “Change back into a sword!” She willed magic into the ring with every fiber of her being. “Change, damn you!” But the stubborn metal would not budge.

  A small, cool hand slipped into her free one, and Saturday turned to see Thursday at her side. “Men are bastards,” said her sister. “Amazing, wonderful, fabulous, heartbreaking bastards.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” said Jack.

  “Come now,” said Rose Red. “Let’s get you all fed before you set out on your respective journeys.”

  Saturday, Thursday, and Jack all planted a kiss on Mama’s forehead and the company slowly filed out of the sacristy.

  “I think I missed something,” Erik said to Jack as they crossed the threshold back into the chapel. “Who’s Elodie?”

  18

  The Bitter End

  PEREGRINE HATED himself for leaving Saturday, but he’d have hated himself more for staying. No matter who he had been—sheltered earl’s son or demon witch’s daughter—he was a man of his word. He would not dishonor Elodie or the legacy of his father. Saturday deserved no less. Neither did he.