Hero

“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 ca

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.

“Where do we go first?” asked Betwixt. “Starburn?”

Peregrine nodded and put a hand on Betwixt’s scruffy shoulder. In his other hand was a small satchel that contained his worldly possessions: a shard of mirror, a vial of gryphon’s tears, and a golden cup. He had left the runesword with Jack, and the wish that it had better luck besting the dragon a second time around. Saturday had given him no token to take with him, nor had he asked her for one.

“Before you set out on this journey with me, my friend, I must ask you one question.”

“I promise to give you the straightest answer I can,” said Betwixt.

“Is there a home you need to visit? A family to which you need to return? A quest of your own to finish?”

Betwixt scratched at his stubby faun horns, like the witches’, only furrier. “Whatever home or family I was born into I left by choice long ago. I’m a useless sack of trouble on my own. You’re stuck with me.”

“It’s a burden I’m prepared to bear.”

“And you are a burden I’m prepared to bear,” replied Betwixt. In a flash of golden light, he was the pegasus again, silver coat, white mane, angel wings, and all.

As he galloped to speed and took flight, Peregrine looked back down on the gardens of Rose Abbey. But for a few hooded acolytes, no one had come to see him off.

It was just as well.

From the air he looked north, to the White Mountains, but nothing stood out against the jagged horizon. No plumes of smoke and Earthfire spewed from the Top of the World, no hued clouds shot down colorful lightning, no dragon spun on lofty breezes.

More terror and tragedy would come, in time, and he would do his part to remedy the damage he’d had a hand in, but today the world was peaceful. Today, the sun would trek across the sky and march time onward. There would be a tonight, and then another today, and soon he would be back where he belonged. He only hoped that place was at Saturday’s side.

Selfishly, he prayed once more that Elodie had forgotten him and gone on to live a full life.

It had been so long since he’d seen the castle at Starburn that he didn’t recognize it the first time they flew over. He motioned with his hands and legs for Betwixt to circle around and land in the woods, just outside the gates. Hidden in the brush, Betwixt changed from his regal pegasus form into that of a tri-horned mule. And so the long-lost son of Starburn returned to his castle at sunset, on the back of a humble pack animal.

No one seemed to care.

In fact, there seemed to be no one there at all. No soldiers looked down from the towers. No market stalls populated the bailey. There was no smell of horses or hearth fires or children, fresh fruit or rotted meat. There were no sounds but for that of a few empty pe

“Do you think it’s a spell?” Peregrine whispered into the silence. “That they’re all asleep somewhere?”

Betwixt snuffled warily in reply. “Or dead.”

Peregrine dismounted at the front of the keep, walked up the steps, and banged on the door. The knock echoed through the empty bailey. He knocked a second time, and a third. He’d just about given up when the grilled porthole in the door opened.