Hero

  “Help me,” Peregrine implored Betwixt. He hugged one of Cwyn’s talons while Betwixt hooked a tusk around another, and they pulled in opposite directions. Peregrine shouted a halt when he heard the telltale sound of steel against shell. He extracted Jack’s sword and laid it aside before it did either Betwixt or himself any damage.

  Finally, the two of them pried the bird’s foot open enough for Peregrine to get a decent grip on Jack and pull him free. Jack was as tall as Peregrine remembered but a great deal thinner. The long flight through the frozen atmosphere had taken its toll. His clothes were torn and coated with blood and rime, save for the brilliant slash of blue-green fabric at his wrist. He needed to get Jack warm immediately. Peregrine rolled his friend onto his back and swore. This was not Jack Woodcutter.

  The witch’s familiar had captured a woman.

  Still, the resemblance was remarkable. She must be a sister. Jack had kept Peregrine amused on many a chilly evening with tales of his sisters’ colorful exploits.

  Whoever she was, Peregrine’s arms were now filled with a woman. Even broken, battered, and half dead, she was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in a very, very long time. So he kissed her.

  The cold, chapped lips warmed beneath his. “Sword,” she whispered.

  “It was only a kiss,” mumbled Peregrine, but his heart leapt with happiness. A new friend! He should be worrying about her plight or her health or her family, but the desire for human companionship overwhelmed him.

  Betwixt pushed the sword along the ground until it was within Peregrine’s reach. Peregrine dutifully offered the sword with a chipper “milady,” but her once-again-lifeless body did not take it. Awkwardly, he shifted her in his arms and sheathed the blade in the scabbard at her belt. Regardless of whether or not it was wise to leave her armed, keeping the sword there would be safer for everyone while he moved her out of the snowy cave mouth.

  “I need you,” he said to Betwixt. Strong as he might have been from all his active spelunking, this girl was too large and unwieldy for him to carry like the romantic hero he’d once pretended to be. He hoped—and was pleasantly surprised—that she fit along Betwixt’s back. Her neck curved up his tail, and her legs trailed out over his tusks. His six stubby chicken feet seemed to bear the weight without strain.

  Peregrine led Betwixt to the cave he used as a bedchamber and rushed to throw coals on the fire pit in the center of the room. He pulled his sleeping pallet as close to the fire as he felt was safe before ungracefully rolling the girl off the chimera’s back. Even in the dim light he could tell that the blue tinge had miraculously vanished from her skin. She began shivering. That was a good sign.

  He decided to remove her frozen shirt and trousers and replace them with fresh ones from his own wardrobe. He had a much harder time coming up with the latter than the former—skirts were less restraining and more adaptive to the extreme temperatures. He unearthed some hose and a pair of short pants and decided against them both—the short pants had been made for a much smaller man and while they might have fit in the waist, they would have looked ridiculous on Jack’s sister. He finally found something suitable enough that hadn’t rotted to shreds and returned to where she lay, still shivering on the mattress.

  He took a deep breath, steeled his nerves, and proceeded to undress and redress her. It took far longer than it should have, as he kept his eyes half closed most of the time for her modesty. As if she’d care, unconscious as she was. Though Jack might have had something to say about the manhandling of his sister, and that something kept going through Peregrine’s mind as he pulled her deathly cold legs and arms through the unwieldy fabric.

  Betwixt, thankfully unable to laugh in his current state, merely hung his orange head and shook his giant tusks.

  When Peregrine finished, he covered her gently with several fur blankets. It would have to do for now. As much as he hated to leave the girl, he still needed to tend to the witch and Cwyn before the two of them froze in the cave mouth. If the witch died, then her hold on the dragon would be lifted. He didn’t need some freshly woken beast of legend burning him out of house and home, or more cave falling down around his ears, thank you. He was comfortable enough with the way things were, leagues above the world of the eternally dying, down where clocks ticked seconds away and counted breaths that, once exhaled, could never again be taken.

  He jogged back to the windy cave mouth. Cwyn had blessedly shrunk to a manageable size. The witch looked so small and fragile now: a bag of bones in a tattered gray dress with a white mop for a head. Her eyelids remained closed over the one aspect that ravaged her features. Betwixt prodded her foot, and it flopped over. Peregrine pressed his fingers into the wrinkled flesh of her neck and felt for a heartbeat. It was there, faint but steady.

  “Still alive.” Peregrine glanced up at the looming, frosted fingerstones above them. All the witch’s spells would be lifted upon her death. As a water witch, the lorelei’s talent had aided in the formation of these icerock caverns. Without her beating blue heart, the mountain would collapse on top of them.

  Assuming they hadn’t been roasted by the dragon already, of course.

  Betwixt patiently resumed his role as stretcher and bore the witch down the opposite side of the rubble to her bedchambers, the lantern dangling precariously from the deadly, hooked stinger of his tail.

  Peregrine followed the chimera, his arms full of the still-rather-large and unwieldy Cwyn. He administered a healing salve to Cwyn’s angry scrape before tucking the witch beneath her patchwork fur blankets. The witch and Betwixt were the closest thing he’d had to family beyond his parents. How strange it was to care for someone and hate her all at the same time.

  Betwixt prodded Peregrine in the leg again, reminding him of the girl—as if it were possible for him to forget. He needed to be present when she awoke. Even after all this time, he still remembered what it had been like to come into this cave of majesty and madness; the least he could do would be to guide her through her first steps. Poor lost soul. She would be so frightened! He would be as gentle as he could, easing her into these new circumstances. He would be her friend. After all, they had someone in common: her brother.

  Peregrine banked the fire in the kitchen caverns, covering the stewpot so that it might still be warm when the witch and her familiar awoke later. He set more clear ice to melt in another pot. His mother the countess had always had tea to calm her nerves. Peregrine had taken up the affectation in memory of her, what little memory there was left.

  By the time he returned to the Woodcutter girl, he was relieved to see that her cheeks had regained a rosy flush and her breathing was deep and regular. Her face was unblemished; what he thought had been a bruise along her jawline must have been just a shadow. There were no gashes or lumps, only pink scratches on her arms and across her ribs. The blood on her clothes must have been Cwyn’s. In his panic, he must have imagined the worst. If he didn’t know better, he’d have guessed she’d merely fallen asleep after a long day’s work instead of being dragged half dead against her will to the peak of the tallest mountain in the world.

  But he did know better, just as he knew that the deepest wounds were not always visible from the outside of the body. Peregrine lay down next to Jack’s sister and held her tightly, willing his body’s heat into her. Having been without human company for so long, the embrace was as much for his own healing as it was for hers. He breathed in her tangled mass of hair; she smelled of frost and bird musk, but beneath that he imagined he caught the scents of salt and sunshine. She sighed in her sleep.

  It was a lovely sound.

  7

  Welcome to the Madness

  THE AIR tasted like the kitchen in winter, all frost and cinders. Her coverlet was rough in patches. She was excessively warm. Saturday opened her eyes and tried to focus on the stone blocks in the ceiling of her tower room. Had Papa let her sleep past dawn again?

  And then the shrieking began.

  Saturday sat up and put her hand
on the hilt of her sword. The very warm lump on the pallet beside her cursed, and from the blankets jumped either a very handsome girl or a very pretty boy in a skirt. Not a nightgown, a skirt. What sort of person wore a skirt to bed? And what was he . . . she doing in Saturday’s room?

  But she wasn’t supposed to be in her room either. She should have been with Mama on Thursday’s ship. Room . . . sea . . . ship . . . Saturday blinked as memories swam before her.

  “She’s awake early.”

  “She” seemed to designate someone other than Saturday. The strange boy cursed again. He . . . she . . . took Saturday by the shoulders and shook her, forcing her to concentrate on . . . his, definitely his . . . maybe . . . face. Either his skin was slightly green or Saturday was sicker than she felt. “Doesn’t matter. It’s my fault. Look, I’m sorry I don’t have time to explain. Just don’t say anything. If you don’t say anything, you will stay safe. Can you promise me that?”

  Saturday was too confused to do anything but nod. She’d promised Peter that she’d find Trix and come home. She had promised to protect Mama and then vanished without a word to her. She didn’t seem to be very good at promises lately.

  “Good girl.” The strange boy kissed her forehead. “Welcome to the madness.” He leapt from her bedside to the far side of the circle of stones in the middle of the room.

  Circle of stones. White, glittering rocks. Definitely not her room.

  The strange boy dumped half a bin of coal into the stone circle—only the very rich could afford to waste coal like that—and haphazardly stirred it with a poker. The room warmed and brightened bit by bit, though there was no smoke from the fire. The pit smelled of brimstone. Perhaps she’d gone to Hell and the raven who’d captured her was an angel delivering her to Lord Death.

  The boy straightened his shirt and skirt. He wound his long black hair back into a knot and fixed it at the base of his skull. Friday had that same talent; Saturday had watched her sister do it enough times before starting the mending at the kitchen table. Her hand drifted to her own hair, grasping at nothing but air until it came to her chin. A vision flashed in her mind of Erik . . . the slice of a sword . . . a battle cry. At the same time, the light from the fresh coals began to fully illuminate the space around them.

  Above her, undulating, milky-white stone spilled down from the heavens. The ceiling lifted like a wild cathedral over archways and crevasses and up again into empty shadows. Giant protrusions stretched down from above or up from below, reaching in to fill the space with curious waxen fingers. This was no palace but a cave, one as old as the gods, or older.

  “Where are we?”

  The strange boy shushed her. She remembered his advice about staying safe and closed her mouth.

  Before the vapor of her breath could dissipate, an enormous, long-tusked crimson beetle-thing came scuttling around the corner on . . . chicken legs? Right on his wickedly pointed tail flew a large bird with deeply violet wings. Behind the bird stalked a small, wraithlike woman with giant empty holes where her eyes should be. Her skin was slightly blue, though she didn’t appear cold.

  Madness, the boy had said. Oh, how right he had been.

  Saturday was instantly on her feet with her sword in both hands.

  “Forgive me, Mother, I did not expect you up and around for some time. That spell took a lot out of you.” The boy gave the crimson insect a look that Saturday might have given Peter, if he hadn’t woken her in time for breakfast.

  Wait . . . had he called her Mother? But the boy wasn’t blue. And spells? She was no fairy, so that meant this wraith was a sorceress or a witch. Judging by her hue and the small horns on her forehead, Saturday guessed the latter. What had become of her eyes?

  The witch ignored the boy and pointed a bony finger at Saturday. “How dare you mess with my familiar! Who ever heard of a purple raven?” Those terribly empty eye sockets gaped accusingly in Saturday’s direction, but slightly to the left, as if there were someone standing behind her. The effect was unnerving. Saturday resisted the urge to turn and look. “I’ll take that sword, dearie.”

  Over my dead body. Saturday stretched the fingers of both hands, wrapped them tightly around the hilt again, and settled into a defensive position on the pallet. She sized the witch up. The insane old woman was no physical match for her. If she attacked before the witch could loose a spell, the fight would be over and done with quickly. Then Saturday could give her full attention to getting out of this bizarre cavern and back to the swordfight from which she’d been so rudely kidnapped.

  “There’s no escape from here this time, my terrible troublemaker. Hand it over.”

  This time? Saturday had never been to this place before. She definitely would have remembered.

  “Just take it, Mother. Use your magic,” said the boy.

  Saturday scowled. So much for thinking the boy was on her side. Saturday calculated the distances in the room, deciding how close the witch would need to come to her before she could spring her attack.

  “Snip-snap-snurre-basselure—I can’t grab hold of it! There’s something protecting her.”

  There was?

  “You take the sword,” the witch told the boy. “You’re about his size.”

  His? Saturday did turn then to see if someone really was standing behind her, but there was no one else in the room. She turned back to the witch . . . and was treated to a face full of violet feathers. Saturday spat and swung but the bird was too close; the weight of the sword shifted her off balance. She kicked the furs aside and the raven-that-should-not-have-been-purple came at her again. Saturday gritted her teeth and growled, as a battle cry would have left her with another mouthful of feathers.

  Stop fighting. Give her the sword.

  Saturday stopped fighting, but only because THERE WAS A VOICE IN HER HEAD. A voice coming from inside one’s own skull was not something a fighter trained for. Then again, it was exactly the sort of stunt she would have expected Velius to pull.

  You’re going to think yourself into an early grave, girl.

  “Who—?” The boy moved closer and she remembered to keep her mouth shut.

  He stretched out a hand. “Woodcutter, please.”

  He knew her name? Her suspicions grew. This was no random abduction. Did they plan to ransom her back to Sunday and Rumbold? Not without shedding a few drops of blood first. Saturday wouldn’t make this kidnapping easy on anyone.

  NOW, CHILD.

  The words echoed so loudly between her ears that she winced and loosened her grip on the sword.

  GET OUT OF MY HEAD, Saturday thought back, but it was too late. The boy plucked the sword from her grasp and the air began to sing. As if burned, he quickly dropped the weapon onto the pallet.

  “It’s hot!” he cried.

  Saturday cocked her head at the bold-faced lie. She recognized that strange singing—it was the same sound her nameday gift had made in her hands the night it had changed from an ax to a sword. The boy knew her sword was enchanted and, for whatever reason, he did not want the empty-eyed wraith touching it.

  “Charmed,” said the witch. “Ooh, how wonderful! Back up, sweetling, and let Mummy take care of it.” She crossed the room as efficiently as anyone with sight, then knelt and gingerly swaddled the sword inside the fur blankets without touching any part of the hilt or blade.

  Saturday lunged for the witch with her dagger. The witch held up a blue-palmed hand and Saturday froze in mid-strike. She strained with all her might, but not so much as a finger moved. She tried to cry out, but the sound died in her throat.

  The witch clasped the sword to her skinny chest and strutted out of the cave with all the confidence of a woman who had two very good eyes. “Come, Cwyn,” she said to the bird. “Betwixt, please sit on our guest until we return,” she said in the direction of the bugaboo. “I’ll deal with you later, Jack Woodcutter,” she said to the space beside Saturday’s head, and then cackled madly on her way out of the cave.

  Jack? The witch thought
she was her dead brother? Had these people lost their minds, or had she?

  Saturday shook her head to clear the cobwebs, happy to find that she was able to move again now that the wraith and her bird had left the area. The next body part she freed was her index finger, which she pointed at the boy.

  “You,” she commanded with a voice not unlike her mother’s, “will tell me exactly where I am and what is going on. And you”—she pointed at the bugaboo—“if you so much as attempt to sit on me, I will throw you out the nearest window.” If there weren’t any windows in these caves, Saturday would make one. “And then I will sit on you.”

  The bugaboo shook its tusks, and his carapace turned a light shade of ocean blue.

  “Did you just . . . ? Gods, I am not colorful enough for this crowd.”

  “His name is Betwixt,” said the boy.

  “Betwixt. I’d say I’m pleased to meet you, but this is all a bit too strange for me. And if you know my family, that’s saying a lot.” Betwixt’s shell shimmered and changed again. “What’s green mean?” Saturday asked the boy.

  “Not sure, but I think he’s in love with you.”

  “Huh. So no crushing me with your massive bulk.” Betwixt waved his tusks back and forth in dissent. “Excellent. Your turn.” Saturday raised her eyebrows at the boy.

  “What do you want to know first: my story, or your brother’s?”

  “Do you know where Trix is?”

  “Who’s Trix?” asked the boy.

  “Not the brother you were referring to, apparently,” said Saturday.

  “Jack,” he said loudly and slowly. “Do you want me to tell you about Jack?”

  “Sum up whatever you can fit in before the witch returns, or I punch you.” Saturday raised her fists. “I may just punch you anyway, for good measure. I’m not big on patience.”

  The boy took a deep breath and then spoke as fast as he could. “The witch is a lorelei—a water demon. She’s not very talented when it comes to spells, so she siphons magic off a sleeping dragon in an effort to open a doorway back to the demon home world. Her daughter, Leila, ran away after cursing some fool with similar features to take her place.” He curtseyed. “The witch sees through the eyes of Cwyn, her raven familiar, because her eyes were stolen by one evil, conniving Jack Woodcutter in an effort to thwart her spellcasting.” The boy crossed his arms over his chest. “The end.”