Hero

Table of Contents

Title Page

Table of Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Thief

Swords and Sisters

Distraction

Godstuff

Sulfur and Stone

Earthbreaker

The Deepest Wounds

Welcome to the Madness

Epiphany

Decision

Destined for Destruction

A Nonsense Never Hoped For

Beyond Saving

Mirror, Mirror

The Sea of Dead

Wicked and Whole

Wings of Ice and Stone

Fate’s Playthings

The Bitter End

A New Adventure

Acknowledgments

Sample Chapter from ENCHANTED

Buy the Book

About the Author

Copyright © 2013 by Alethea Kontis

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

Harcourt is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

www.hmhbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Kontis, Alethea.

Hero / Alethea Kontis.

pages cm.—(Woodcutter sisters ; book 2)

Companion volume to Enchanted.

Summary: Saturday Woodcutter accidentally conjures an ocean in the backyard and, with sword in tow, sets sail on a pirate ship, only to find herself kidnapped and held captive by a mountain witch with the power to destroy the world.

ISBN 978-0-544-05677-0 (hardback)

[1. Fairy tales. 2. Witches—Fiction. 3. Characters in literature—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ8.K833Her 2013

[Fic]—dc23

2013003895

eISBN 978-0-544-06047-0

v1.1013

For my beloved grandmothers,

Helen E. Kontis

&

Madeleine DeRonde,

who taught me to be

a singer, a dancer, a chef, an artist,

a poet, a dreamer, a world traveler,

a reader, a storyteller, a tea drinker,

a lover of life,

and a woman of strength

Prologue

Thief

“OH, HOORAY! It’s you!”

The airy voice burbled like the brook, but there were no women in Peregrine’s traveling party save the one he currently pursued, the bright-eyed temptress who haunted his every thought. Peregrine sca

“Hello?” Was it a naiad? A sylph? A fairy collecting milkweed and thistledown? It might have been the wind rustling the colorful autumn leaves, or his own mind tricking him, as his dearly departed father’s had for so long. “Hello?”

“Please tell me it’s you,” she said. “The Earl of Starburn? Son of George and Marcella?”

Peregrine’s fresh grief turned his confusion to wariness. No one could be so specific as to his identity unless she’d been following him since the funeral. Like a thief. Slowly, the newly orphaned Earl of Starburn backed against a tree and unsheathed the dagger at his waist. It was an ornamental piece, but Peregrine figured it had at least one good jab in it before he’d need to find a sturdier weapon, such as the sizeable fallen branch on his left.

“I am Peregrine of Starburn,” he a

She manifested out of fog wisps, falling leaves, and leftover fireflies. Her hair was long, longer than his, and dark as the night but for a streak that bisected her ebon locks with a flash of silver-blue. Her eyes were black as well, sprinkled with starlight, and the sparse leaves of the grove brought out an olive hue in her slightly dusky complexion. The air around them suddenly filled with the stench of burned ci

Like every other child raised in Arilland, Peregrine knew what happened when one encountered a fairy. In the next few minutes, his life would change for the better or worse, and drastically so. Strangely enough, he was not afraid. He thought this new development rather wonderful. Whatever challenge she saw fit to give him, he was up to it.

“I am Leila,” she said. “I am late. And I am so, so sorry.”

Peregrine recalled no fairy story that started this way. “I . . . accept your apology?”

“You are too kind. I will now grant you one wish.” She raised her hands in the air and flapped them about like drunken butterflies. Peregrine clumsily caught them and stopped her.

“Thank you,” he said, “I think. But I’m very confused.”

Leila covered her smiling mouth with long, slender fingers. Her giggle popped like bubbles in the stream. “Your father did not tell you about me?”

“Ah,” said Peregrine. “No. He didn’t.”

In truth, it was very possible that his father had spoken about this Leila, but any mention of fairies, real or otherwise, would have been dismissed as the earl’s further mental deterioration. Peregrine placed a hand over his chest, felt the lump of his father’s wedding ring beneath his tunic, and silently asked a ghost’s forgiveness.

The fairy got a faraway look in her eyes, and straightened. For all her affected daintiness, Peregrine noted that she was almost as tall as he was. “Your father was a wonderful man,” she whispered.

“I tend to agree,” said Peregrine.

“But of course you would. You’re a smart boy.” Her tone slipped into condescension, but quickly righted back into dreaminess. “He came to my defense once, when I was helpless.”

“He did that quite a lot.” Peregrine hoped one day to be half the man his father was, before his father had become half a man.

“He was an honorable man, and for his good deeds I promised a boon.”

Peregrine frowned. A fairy wish might have helped his father’s debilitating state. Why had this idiot vanished before keeping her word?

“But I was captured by an evil witch,” she said before he could ask. “I was forced to be her slave in a cave so high in the White Mountains that time itself did not reach the summit. Only now am I free from her spell, and so I came immediately to repay my debt.”

“My father is dead.”

“Which is why I sought your forgiveness.”

“Once again, your apology is accepted.”

“And once again, I offer you the wish that should have been his.”

The ci

The fairy sensed his discomfort. “Let me fetch you some water.” His golden cup appeared in her olive hands, though he didn’t remember giving it to her. She bent down to the brook to fill it. Her dark hair and the folds of her cloak eddied about her.

Every man has one true wish in his heart. Peregrine paid Leila the courtesy of waiting for her to stand and offer him the goblet of water before saying: “I want to live a long and fruitful life. But in the event that I begin to lose my mind, or any other vital organ”—men often perished of less specific lingering ailments—“I wish to die swiftly and in peace.”

The statement could possibly be seen as two separate wishes. Peregrine hoped this particular fairy wasn’t one to argue semantics.

The sky was dark now. Distant thunder warned of an approaching storm. “Drink,” she said, “and your wish will be granted.”

Peregrine gulped down every bit of the water. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smiled at the fairy. She smiled back. She was still smiling when the water began to freeze him from the inside out. The hand that held the golden goblet shook, slowly graying from frost. A pressure burst like icicles in his brain again and again, bringing him to his knees. He grabbed at his head and tore his neatly coiffed hair out of its queue, screaming for the pain to stop with a throat that could no longer speak.