Hero

Trix kissed her hot, stiff cheek. “And you would make a fine traveling companion. But I will move faster on my own. I may already be too late.”

Too late? Too late for what? His mother wasn’t getting any deader. But the words weren’t coming anymore.

“Goodbye, Saturday,” he said to her from the door. “I love you. And good luck.”

Anger made her skin even hotter, and she growled louder than her stomach. With a hand on her sword, she forced herself to rise from her chair, much as she had forced herself to eat that bowl of stew. With each slow step up the tower, Saturday cursed Mama. She cursed Trix. She cursed her Aunt Joy and every meddling fairy she’d ever known, and all the ones she hadn’t met yet to boot.

By the time she’d made it to the aerie and crossed to the window, Trix was a dot on the far side of the meadow. Saturday growled again, this time parting her teeth enough to let out a full-fledged scream from her tight belly. She wished she had enough strength to pound the walls or unsheathe her sword, but it took all she had to stand and look helplessly out at the disappearing form of her foundling brother. She adjusted her grip on her sword hilt. Her thumb brushed against cool metal thorns.

The mirror. Stupid, useless thing. As useless as Saturday herself, frozen in place at the casement. With the last of her energy she pulled the mirror from her swordbelt and threw it out the window with a roar. She tilted back on her heels. Her eyes rolled up into her head, and her eyelids drooped again. She did not hear the mirror hit the ground below, nor did she hear it break. She lost her footing as the world began to shake and tilt around her.

3

Godstuff

“WHOA!”

Wind whipped. Horses whi

The clattering of carriage wheels. A door opening and slamming.

“Mama?! Papa?!” A woman’s voice like an angel. Frightened.

Monday.

“Here. In the kitchen.” A deep voice with a common accent, trying to stay calm.

Erik.

“Are they . . . ?” asked the angel.

The rumbling answer was too low to be understood.

Saturday tried to open her eyes. The light that slipped between her heavy lids stabbed mercilessly at her brain.

Painpainpain.

She closed her eyes and concentrated instead on sounds. The two voices swam in and out of clarity, both strange and familiar. She tried to make sense of them through the pounding of a heartbeat that crashed like waves in her ears. The squealing birds outside the window made a horrible high-pitched racket.

Erik and Monday would be looking for her. Saturday had no strength to cry out. She slid a tongue between dry lips and tasted salt there. Was she bleeding? Had she hit the stones when she fell? She opened her mouth to scream, but all she managed was a wheezy moan. Try harder. She must tell them what had happened, tell them about Trix. She had to make sure Papa and Mama and Peter were all right.

First, she needed to figure out a way to get down all those stairs. The thought alone exhausted her, but concern for her family urged her onward. She leaned against the sheathed sword at her belt and used it to stand, but it tangled in her legs as she tried to walk. After stumbling twice, Saturday unfastened the swordbelt and removed it.

The moment her body stopped making contact with the sword, she felt a thousand times worse. Her stomach clenched, spasmed, and threatened to rebel. Daylight blinded her as it bounced off the cloud cover framed by the casement. One by one, her disobeying limbs began to shut down. Before she completely passed out again, she forced a hand out and grasped the hilt. Energy and relief flooded through her. Trix was right: the sword’s magic actively fought off the sleeping spell.

“Aren’t you handy,” she muttered. With the sword no longer attached to her person but still sheathed, Saturday used it to stumble and crawl down the many steps from the aerie. Oh, if Velius could see her now, forced to use her gift as a literal crutch. He would laugh himself silly.

Erik must have heard her less-than-graceful descent, and met her on the last flight of stairs. Careful not to knock the sword away, he slipped an arm beneath her shoulder and encouraged her to lean her weight on him. She reluctantly obliged.

“Not going to carry me to safety, Hero?” Saturday teased him, but her words slurred together as if she’d been swilling Gri

Still, Erik seemed to understand her. He’d no doubt helped more than one mumbledy-mouthed guard back from a tavern in a similar fashion. “And throw my fine back out, Giantess? You must be joking.” But his arm did tighten around her waist, and she felt a few pounds lighter as they crossed the living area. When they reached the kitchen, he a

Saturday’s face was immediately filled with Monday’s hair as her eldest sister embraced her. Saturday would have reciprocated, had her limbs not been still full of rocks. But her strength was slowly returning. She patted Monday’s voluminous skirts and repeated, “Really, I’m all right,” in response to her sister’s cooing. Over her sister’s shoulder, Saturday could see Mama, Papa, and Peter, heads down on the di

The night before. It was daytime now. She’d slept the whole night through. Trix was half a day ahead of them now, assuming he hadn’t stopped to rest. But he probably had stopped to rest, so he couldn’t have gone that far. If Monday and Erik let her have one of those horses she’d heard, she’d be able to cross the meadow and catch up with—

Saturday’s gasp died as she choked on Monday’s mass of golden curls. Monday backed up to let her sister breathe, allowing Saturday to see Erik standing at the open back door. Wild gusts of wind whipped at his hair and sleeves; the fabric danced like the exiting storm clouds and the waves crashing on the impossible ocean beyond him.

Saturday slowly raised a hand to her mouth. The salt on her lips hadn’t been blood. That hadn’t been her heartbeat pulsating in her ears upon waking like waves on the ocean—it had actually been waves on the ocean. Above those waves cried a cacophony of gulls and shorebirds, fishing and flirting with some very confused cousins from the Wood. The Woodcutters’ little towerhouse was leagues from the nearest shoreline. Or at least it had been.

“I’m dreaming,” whispered Saturday, for that was the only sound explanation. The cries of the gulls mixed with the cries in her mind of the drowning people she’d seen in Monday’s mirror. Now she knew how Thursday felt when she saw the future. Her stomach rebelled again, but not from spelled stew.

“It is no dream,” said Erik.

“What happened?” asked Saturday.

“There was a wicked storm, the air rumbled, and the earth broke,” said Erik. “It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. It still isn’t.”

“Rumbold and Sunday are trying to assess the damage and keep everyone calm,” Monday explained. “The palace is in chaos. They could not get away, but we came as soon as we could.”

“I felt the rumbling,” Saturday said. “Right before I fell . . . asleep.” She wasn’t sure what else to call it. Trix had poisoned them all and run away. Had he done this, too, so they couldn’t follow him? Was this some sort of wild animal magic?

“Perhaps you should tell us what happened here first,” said Monday.

Saturday was starting her story in the wrong place again. She persuaded her fuzzy brain to remember. “A messenger came.”

“Conrad,” said Erik. “Yes, he brought us the same message.” Monday tried to interject something, but Erik stopped her, urging Saturday to continue.

“Mama was upset.” It took Saturday an incredible amount of energy to open her mouth wide, work her tongue properly, and make her words understood, but she managed it slowly and surely. “Trix got quiet. Papa sent the messenger to the palace. Mama went to pack. Trix said he didn’t want to go with her. Peter and I set the table.”