Hero

“Trix said he didn’t want to go?” asked Monday.

“If he’d stated his intentions, Mama would have forbidden him, and then he would have been compelled to stay. He pla

Erik chuckled. “Clever little bugger.”

The anxiety that came with retelling the tale woke Saturday up even more. “He stirred the pot, Monday. He took over stirring the pot when Mama got the message, and we were all so tied in knots over the news that no one bothered to tell him to stop. And when the stew tasted so good”—she could still smell the cold leavings in the bowls on the table and the burned remnants in the stewpot long boiled dry—“Mama didn’t even scold him. But she made me eat, even though the sword didn’t want me to, because she can’t ever keep her mouth shut.”

It wasn’t fair of her to say that about Mama, but Saturday got swept up in the telling and she wanted to get it all out of her. Besides, Mama was still snoring softly on the table. “Trix poisoned us. He poisoned us, and he didn’t care, not one bit. Did he make the ocean too?”

“This is no fey magic, wild or otherwise,” said Erik, nodding to the view outside the door. “This is godstuff.”

“Why would the gods make an ocean?” Saturday asked.

Monday turned her gaze from the watery horizon and shrugged. “Why not? The gods are responsible for miracles and misery alike.”

Erik and Monday shared a look across the room that spoke volumes, much like Saturday and Peter did, only Saturday didn’t understand this secret language. Erik bowed his head and resumed his interrogation. “Did Trix take something from the library? Is that why you were up in the tower?”

Saturday shook a head that felt considerably lighter. “I wanted to see which way he ran,” she said. “I thought I could call him back. But he was already too far, and the sleep was taking over my body. I was so angry! I screamed at him and I—” The room lost focus as Saturday recalled what she had thrown from the window of the aerie, and the tremors she had felt right before she’d surrendered to the fairy-poisoned stew.

She’d killed him. In a fit of rage, Saturday had killed her little brother.

Peter stirred at the table. Mama and Papa had stopped snoring. Saturday white-knuckled the sword’s pommel to give her strength, physically and mentally. She sat up in the chair, ramrod-straight. “It was me,” she confessed to the kitchen. “I called the ocean.”

This was what Monday’s looking glass had shown them: the flooding, the terror, the storm. Wind and rain and death. Monday had asked Saturday who she was, and only then had the mirror sprung to life. Perhaps it didn’t know what Saturday was, but it knew who she would be: a chaos dealer. A murderer.

Why hadn’t she paid more attention? Why hadn’t Monday said anything? But Saturday didn’t bother chasing after futile answers. Peter had told her often enough that she was as unstoppable as a runaway horse. The visions in the looking glass had been as inevitable as day after the dawn.

Even the sword couldn’t lend her enough courage to voice the rest of her crime. Silence was the only immediate comment, and that was lost to the task of tending to Peter and Papa and Mama’s waking. One by one, Monday and Erik checked to make sure they were each all right, ignoring specific questions until Mama said, “Someone had better explain what is going on, right now!” So Saturday’s tale waited that much longer for the telling.

“Slowly,” Erik advised Mama, who, wincing, put her hand to her head. “One step at a time,” he said softly.

“Trix,” said Papa. “Gods bless that boy.”

“He magicked the stew,” Peter deduced, wincing like Mama had at the sound of his own voice.

“Yes,” said Erik. “And he ran . . .” He looked to Saturday for help.

“North,” said Saturday. “Across the meadow, alongside and away from the Wood.”

“Fool child,” said Mama, but with care instead of anger. “He’s gone to the abbey by himself.”

“I agree with you,” said Erik. Saturday stopped herself from chuckling—the soldier was a quick study. A good way to keep Mama happy was to constantly remind her how right she was. “Do you have any idea why he would have gone to such lengths to travel alone?”

“No.”

Erik tried to be reassuring. “He can’t have gone far on foot.”

“He won’t need to,” said Peter. “The animals will help him.”

Guilt burst from Saturday’s lips. “But the ocean! I’ve killed him!”

Any other sister might have warranted hugs and petting. For Saturday, Peter harrumphed and put a hand on her shoulder. “Trix is fine. He can travel three times as fast as any of us. He just asks the animals.”

“But you don’t know for sure,” said Saturday.

“Yes, we do,” said Monday. “The animals aid him whenever they can.” She rubbed her arms briskly against the cold bite of the breeze in the warm, salt-aired kitchen. “They will also protect him. Wherever he is, he’ll be fine.”

Saturday felt sick in her bones. Her siblings’ reassuring words bounced off her thick skin. There was a dread in the pit of her stomach she could not ignore, and it nagged at her. The only way to know for sure that she hadn’t killed her brother was to see for herself.

Mama wisely said nothing and simply nodded. She knew too well what it was like to doom one of her children to death.

“He’ll be fine until I get my hands on him,” Peter growled. He met Saturday’s eyes and they both smiled. Peter’s bark was far worse than his bite. She’d been on the receiving end of that bark often enough to know. But then Peter’s smile fell. His brow furrowed, and he cocked his head at her. She answered the question he didn’t ask.

“I was the last to fall asleep,” she said. “Trix bade me farewell, after he poisoned us all.” So maybe it was fairy magic instead of poison, who cared. It worked the same way. “I tried to talk some sense into him, but he’d made up his mind. I offered to go with him, but he refused my help. He left. I got mad. And then I broke the world.” She pointed at the wide-open door leading to a wider-open landscape.

Slowly, Peter, Mama, and Papa stood and followed Monday into what was left of the backyard before it fell away into endless waters. The sun burst through cracks in the clouds now, and the sea was calmer. But it was still the sea.

Saturday stood with them, her strength fully returned, and breathed in a deep lungful of salt air. She’d sat beside lakes and creeks and rivers, but this water was alive, mesmerizing and chaotic, gorgeous and unforgiving. It scared her. Who knew how many i

“Nothing small for you, eh, m’girl?”

“No, sir,” said Saturday. She prayed that the gods had spared as many lives as they could. Miracles, like Monday had said. Hundreds and hundreds of miracles.

“What’s happened to the barn?” cried Mama. “All that lovely dry hay wasted! And no place left for the chickens to run, and nowhere to hang the laundry. Good thing I kept the goose in the pantry, despite everyone’s grumbling. There will be no pies this winter if the apples are gone too.”

Chickens? Pies? Saturday had possibly just murdered hundreds of people. There were waves lapping upon their back doorstep, and all Mama could think about was hay and laundry? And the racket that goose made—it’s a wonder one of them hadn’t crept downstairs in the wee hours and put it out of its misery. Saturday could hear it in there now, barking louder than the gulls.

“Next time I call the ocean, I’ll ask it please not to encroach so far onto the property.”

“See that you do,” was Mama’s reply.

“Who’s normal now?” teased Peter.

“I’m still just me,” Saturday snapped. “The magic was in Thursday’s mirror.” That’s right—part of this devastation was Thursday’s doing, and she would have them know of it.