Hero

“They who?”

“Bards, minstrels, the usual folk. They all come to Faerie to play for the queen.” Wolf risked a glance at Saturday from the corner of his eye. “I knew Jack wouldn’t be able to lord his legendary status over his sisters forever.”

This time Saturday did smile. “I suppose not. So what is it they say?”

“Just verses about mirrors and swords and oceans, for now, bits about you taking over a pirate ship before trapping a giant bird that you rode to the Top of the World.” Wolf tilted his hat back. His sideburns covered most of his face; those and his long, wavy locks were almost every color Saturday had ever seen on a head of hair. Tufts peeked out from his tall collar and beneath the long sleeves of his coat. His hands were weathered and his nails were thick. His eyes were yellow shadows beneath bushy brows.

“I look forward to hearing the new tales, once word gets out about the witch and the mountain and all,” he went on. “Instead of batting their eyes at idiots, young girls will start taking up stick swords to slay a dragon and save the prince.” He chuckled at the idea. “Yes, I do look forward to that.”

“He’s not a prince,” Saturday grumbled. “He’s the son of an earl.” And unlike in Jack’s tales, Saturday hadn’t gotten to keep her prize in the end.

“‘Prince’ is more romantic,” said Wolf. “Give it a fortnight, Hero. He’ll be a prince. Mark my words.”

“If you say so.” Saturday took up the scowling again in earnest. It had been so hard to let Peregrine leave the abbey. Too hard. She had stolen an acolyte’s robes and watched him fly off with Betwixt. She spun the ring on her finger again: once, twice, thrice. She would not beg the gods to let him come back to her. She was done asking for anything, in rhyme or otherwise.

“Wolves mate for life, you know,” he said, apropos of nothing.

“Yes. So?”

“So I know love when I see it. No two people who love each other as much as you and that boy do will ever be apart for very long, so there’s no sense in you wasting life worrying. Besides”—he pulled his hat back down—“your sour face is ruining my evening.”

Saturday had half a mind to jump off the wagon and walk to Faerie. Everything Wolf said was gods-meddling rubbish. How could he be so sure that Saturday loved Peregrine if she didn’t even know it herself? All she knew was the hollowness in her chest and the ache in her head. Her mind didn’t seem to be able to focus on anything. She felt angry and empty and overly warm and slightly ill. Perhaps she’d caught a chill in their rush from the mountain, or the abbey’s rich food had disagreed with her. There was a madness inside her that wanted nothing more than to scream and cry its way out.

Oh no. Saturday sat up. This was no malady. Wolf was right: this was love. She loved Peregrine, so much that it actually hurt.

Saturday stood in the wagon, raised her face to the gods, and vented all her frustration at the sky.

Old Sassy startled, and Wolf snapped the reins again to keep her in check. “Worked it out, did you?”

“Why?” Saturday cried.

“Love works in mysterious ways,” said Wolf.

“No, why did he leave me?”

Wolf reached up and pulled her back into the moving wagon before she toppled out. “Look,” he said. “Some things you have to go out and do to prove to everyone else that you’re good enough, right?”

Saturday had worked hard the whole of her life to be as special as the rest of her family. The fey-unblessed sister had longed for years to leave the confines of her quiet, mundane life, until the day she finally did . . . wrecking half the countryside and blowing up a mountain to boot.

“Well, sometimes a man needs to go out and do something to prove that very same thing to himself.” Wolf drew Old Sassy to a halt. “We know just how amazing you are—in a month every child from Faerie to the Troll Kingdom will know too. This is not about you, love. It’s about Peregrine proving to himself that he deserves you.”

Wolf clicked his tongue to set the mare going again while Saturday brooded in the twilight. “That’s stupid,” she said finally.

Wolf shrugged. “I don’t make the rules,” he said. “You don’t think he’d actually go back to a betrothal after all you’ve been through, do you?”

“Yes, I do,” said Saturday. That was the trouble. Peregrine was stubbornly honorable enough to keep a promise made by someone else.

“Then let’s hope this Elodie is smarter than he is.”

Saturday and Wolf passed the next two days in companionable silence. They let the horse graze at intervals while they hunted for their di

On the third day they stopped at a creek outside the borders of Faerie, and Saturday decided to test her magic once more. She took the ring from her finger and placed it in the palm of her right hand. The tiny circle of metal mocked her pain, symbolizing the loss of a sword she’d always wanted and a man she hadn’t, but loved all the same. Unbidden, a single tear fell from her cheek and landed in her palm.

Weight forced her hand to the ground. Saturday smiled down at her sword. “Hello, stranger.”

“Probably not wise to go flashing that around the halls of the Fairy Queen,” Wolf said from over her shoulder.

Saturday picked up the sword and examined it. Other than a dull sheen to the blade, it didn’t look worse for the wear. “I just wanted to see if I could still . . . if I was still . . .”

Wolf tossed down the bundle of firewood he’d been collecting. “You’re not going to get any less special, if that’s what you’re afraid of. You’ve burned that bridge. There’s no going back.”

There was a rustle of white feathers in the trees across the stream.

Saturday remained calm. She’d been jumping at birds the whole journey, and Wolf had teased her for it every time. None of them had been the pegasus. There was no reason to think this was either, until a silver-white horse emerged from the brush on angel wings.

She took her sword in both hands and forced the stupid look off her face. Her fingers and toes tingled. She told herself it was an aftereffect of the magic. Her heart knew this was a lie.

“Took you long enough,” she said as Peregrine dismounted.

“I see you got your sword back.”

“It wasn’t easy.”

“Come on,” Wolf said to Betwixt. “There’s a lovely meadow full of nice, peaceful buttercups this way.”

Saturday let them go and tried concentrating on the sword. Swing. Block. Parry. Thrust. “How’s the old homestead?”

“Not the trip down memory lane I thought it would be.” He’d crossed the stream now. “A lot changes in a hundred years.”

Saturday dropped both the sword and the pretense. They hadn’t survived two witches, an exploding mountain, and a dragon just so Peregrine could lose everything.

“A hundred years?” It was bad enough having no family left to speak of; after a hundred years, every bit of the world he’d known would have vanished completely. Saturday couldn’t imagine the loneliness.

“About that, yes. I told you time passed differently up there.”

Saturday remembered the hash marks on the cave walls. He must have had some inkling, but every time she’d asked about it, he’d evaded the question. She wondered how long a person had to be a prisoner before he stopped thinking of time altogether in order to stay sane.

“Peregrine, I’m so sorry.” She touched his jaw, dark with beard stubble. Only a few strands remained of the silver-blue streak in his dark hair. His eyes were truly green now, without a trace of black. “Leila’s curse. It’s broken? Even though she’s still alive?”

“The curse has been fulfilled,” he said. “I lived a long and fruitful life. And now I’m dying.” He turned his face in toward the palm of her hand, taking a deep breath of her scent.