Hero Read online

  As quickly as it had appeared, the scene in the crystals vanished. The shattered speckles of torchlight returned to their places scattered about the cavern as if they’d never left.

  Nothing broke the silence for a while but ripples in the clear water.

  “Did you recognize that girl?” he asked Saturday.

  “I think that was my sister’s cabin boy,” she answered. “I only ever caught a glimpse of her, so I can’t be sure. But it looked like Thursday’s ship.”

  Thursday the Pirate Queen—Peregrine remembered Jack’s stories well. There was sure to be a certain amount of mischief on that ship, and this girl was doubtless the only maiden aboard. Peregrine tried to wrap his mind around the inadvertent spell Saturday had cast.

  “You were too humble with regard to the extent of your god powers,” he said.

  “I did that?” she asked softly.

  “Yes,” said Betwixt. “You did.”

  So everything Cwyn had told them in the armory was correct, though Peregrine hadn’t thought he’d be witnessing an example so soon. “You can work a magic mirror.”

  “I guess?” Saturday replied with little emotion. “I mean, I don’t know. My eldest sister can. Does. Whatever. I don’t have any magic.”

  For someone so strong, she was excessively hard on herself. Beauty and godstuff may not have been the fey powers she wanted, but they were powers she possessed, and it was foolish of her to eschew them.

  “Cwyn said you could control magic,” Peregrine reminded her, “not that you created it.”

  “There is no need to create magic here,” said Betwixt. “Magic permeates the walls around us. You appear to siphon it far more easily than the lorelei can manage.”

  Saturday remained defiant. “But I don’t know anything about magic.”

  “You don’t have to know about it to wield it,” said Peregrine.

  “Still, it’s a good idea to know about it so you don’t get anyone killed,” said Betwixt.

  She threw up her hands. “How can you say that, while you look to me to lead you to your death?”

  “I still have hope,” said Betwixt. “I believe in heroes.”

  “What about you?” Saturday asked Peregrine. “You don’t believe we’ll survive the dragon, do you?”

  She would value his honesty more than pretty words. “I don’t. But our lives don’t end here. There is still a spell to stop and a witch to kill and a dragon to wake, and I plan on doing all that next to the woman I love.”

  He did not expect smiles and shouts of jubilation at his statement, which was good, for he did not receive them. Saturday’s brow furrowed. “You love me?”

  Once more, he thought it best to be honest. There wasn’t time left to play games. “The gods have sent me dreams my whole life of a wild young woman with golden hair and bright eyes. I have always been in love with her. I had thought she was Elodie. Turns out, she was you.” He made no move to touch her.

  “But what about Elodie? What about your betrothal?”

  The last thing Peregrine wanted was for Saturday to think he was not an honorable man. “Elodie is a girl I never knew from a fate I was never meant to have,” he said. “True to Leila’s curse, I have experienced a long and fruitful life on this mountain. We may die up here in the next few moments, but I want to live those moments with purpose, filling them with as much as I possibly can. Don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she answered, and he was pleased to see that her eyes were bright again. He hoped the last things he saw before his death were those eyes.

  “We should make a plan,” said Betwixt. “The witch may be comfortable enough walking into this spell blind, but I’m not.”

  “Agreed,” said Peregrine. “She’ll be preparing her cauldron even now. We’ll usher Saturday to the farthest end of the mountain with her bag of ingredients to lure the witch away from her lair. Then, Betwixt, you and I can—”

  Saturday raised a finger. “I just have one question.”

  “Yes?”

  “You said I could work a magic mirror. Do you see a mirror anywhere?”

  “Ah,” said Peregrine. She had a good point, which meant there was even more to her abilities than he had originally believed.

  “And what does ‘ah’ mean where you come from?”

  “If I may,” said Betwixt. “My dear, I believe you are a Transformer.”

  “A . . . what?”

  “Perhaps ‘mutant’ is a better word,” said Peregrine.

  Saturday grimaced. “No. That sounds worse.”

  “Changer? Transmograficationist?” Peregrine drew the long nonsense word out, making up each syllable as he went along.

  “That sounds ridiculous,” said Saturday.

  “That sounds familiar,” said Betwixt.

  “Whatever you want to call it,” said Saturday, “I know I can’t change myself at all. If I could, I’d be taller.” She smiled at her joke. It was so nice to see her smile.

  “Shapechanging is different,” said the shapechanger. “Cwyn described you as a vessel. Think of yourself as a tool through which magic uses itself to alter itself.”

  “You are an enchanted weapon, all on your own.” Peregrine indicated the runesword still at his hip.

  Saturday thought about it a moment. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It will,” said Betwixt.

  “So . . . magic is using me?”

  “This time it did, yes, like a petulant child wanting to be noticed. But only because you are ignorant.”

  “This conversation is making me feel so much better,” said Saturday.

  “Cats,” Peregrine explained.

  “You are not a chalice or an athame, an inert object with no say in how you are used. You have the power—if you’ll excuse the expression—to choose what is done with the magic around you.” Betwixt lifted his wings to indicate the cave. “Like transforming crystals and other reflective surfaces into magic mirrors.”

  “Or axes into swords.” Peregrine hadn’t meant to say the words aloud, but they echoed in the chamber nonetheless.

  Saturday turned to him. “How in the world do you know about that?”

  Peregrine tapped his temple. “Visions.”

  “The more you tell me about them, the more unsettled I feel,” said Saturday.

  “Imagine the subject of them landing on the doorstep of your prison,” said Peregrine. “You are, quite literally, my dream come true.”

  “Now you’re being preposterous.”

  “And you’re being obtuse,” he said. “But I think I can help. There’s somewhere I need to take you.” He stood and offered a hand. Predictably, she ignored him.

  “Another place like this?”

  “Not as beautiful, but hopefully as illuminating.” He took up the sack of mushrooms and moss, adding to it a pomegranate, a goblinfruit, and two more ripe tomatoes. “For the journey,” he said, tossing the sack over his shoulder. And because he had food, she followed him.

  13

  Mirror, Mirror

  SATURDAY ONLY knew they’d reached their destination when Peregrine lowered the torch to light a brazier he’d come upon. She stayed by the brazier as the coals captured the flame. In her bare feet, wet hair, and damp clothing, it hadn’t taken her body long to freeze back into an icicle. Her eyes followed Peregrine as he walked the perimeter of the room, lighting wall torches as he had done in the crystal cave. These sconces were more elaborate and perfectly anchored into the icerock, like the ones on the walls in Rumbold’s palace. The brazier, too, was a work of art, not a crude stone fire pit like the one she’d woken up beside.

  The light fought the darkness and quickly won. As each torch was lit, so was its reflection.

  Saturday was standing in a cave of mirrors.

  There were mirrors propped against every pillar and outcropping. Some had even frozen into the walls. Large and small, plain and ornate, broken and intact, they reflected the firelight, the occupants of the room, and each other. Some
of the thicker frames boasted carved woodland animals and gargoyles and demons and cherubs and lively trees and flowers. Every graven thing with eyes to stare did so, and their expectant gazes never left Saturday. Betwixt spread his wings in front of one particularly impressive mirror that Saturday guessed was about as wide as her house. Behind him, a thousand Betwixts stretched similarly into infinity.

  “Is this one of the witch’s caves?” Saturday whispered. “Will she find us here? She will be looking for me soon.”

  “It will take her some time to prepare for her spell,” said Peregrine. “And like the garden, the witch does not know this cave exists. I’m not sure where Leila obtained these mirrors, or how long it took her. Some were scattered throughout the caverns, but I collected them here.”

  “Why?” Judging by the number of mirrors, such a project would have taken him longer than honing the edges of all the swords in the armory.

  “While some features of this body are still my own, I have never enjoyed seeing someone else in my reflection.”

  And yet, he had brought her here, willing to face a face he despised to aid her in her quest of knowledge. “What did you look like before?”

  “I can’t remember.” Peregrine waved the question away. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Saturday considered how difficult it must be to forget your own face, especially after your father had forgotten his whole life.

  “I knew these had to be more than just mirrors. I believe they were Leila’s windows to a world in which she could not be and, ultimately, what drove her to escape.”

  “So these mirrors are magic but you can’t make them work?” Saturday asked.

  “Afraid not,” said Peregrine. “I’ve rhymed and rhymed until I thought my brain would leak out my ears.”

  “Mine did,” said Betwixt. “They were grueling exercises.”

  “What about you?” Saturday asked the chimera. “Did you try as well?”

  “Such divination is beyond even my abilities,” said Betwixt, “hampered as they are by the witch’s geis.”

  Their comments only reinforced the fact that Saturday had performed magic back in the crystal cavern, all on her own. A thrill warmed her from head to toe. This is what she had wanted for her life, the ability to manipulate magic, important magic, magic that she could take on her adventures and use to make the world a better place. She wanted to be a legend, like the brother she’d been mistaken for, and legends needed more weapons in their arsenal than a sword and a decent work ethic. She only wished her family were here to witness her triumph before she died saving them all.

  Saturday stood before one of the larger mirrors, its thick wood and gemstone frame tall enough to reflect her whole body. This was it. She couldn’t wait. She knew exactly what she wanted—needed—to see. “Is a rhyme all I need to make this work?”

  “I’m not sure which mirrors will respond to you,” said Betwixt, “if any.”

  “It might be best for you to address the whole room,” offered Peregrine. “Just in case.”

  Saturday took a step back from the large mirror, still facing it, but making sure her field of vision contained as many mirrors as possible. “I can do this,” she said, as much to herself as to the others. She swallowed a yawn, not wanting her companions to realize how exhausted she still was, but she could not disguise her shiver. Peregrine’s image stepped into the mirror behind her and gently placed a threadbare blanket around her shoulders.

  The thin bit of fabric reminded her of the blankets on her bed at home. Typically Saturday was entirely self-sufficient; only Papa and Peter had ever braved her stubbornness to take care of her like this. But Peregrine had fed her and clothed her, seen her clean, and helped her in her tasks. And here in this room he had presented her with the chance to perform magic, real magic, like her sisters and brothers. She wanted to revel in her blissful lack of normalcy for a while.

  Saturday let her eyes linger on the lines of his dusky olive face, the softness of his countenance reflecting his sympathetic nature. He was soft where she was hard. Saturday was sure that no matter what face Peregrine wore, she’d always be able to see that tenderness within him, a quality that she lacked.

  Strange though its origins might be, Peregrine’s affection for her was a beautiful thing, and she hoped she was worthy of it. Here, at the end of her adventure, she might as well let herself be loved. Like the heroes of legend. Like her brother Jack.

  She just wasn’t sure she knew how to love back.

  “Thank you,” Saturday said, and meant it.

  “Tell me what you see,” Peregrine said to her inside the mirror.

  She hadn’t rhymed a word to start the spell yet; the only things framed in the looking glass were the two of them. Together. They were of a height, though Saturday’s body had experienced rougher work and better meals. He was dark where she was fair. She had stamina; he had grace. He was a flower and she was a tree.

  “I see a boy in a girl’s body and a girl in a boy’s.”

  Peregrine smiled at her, making his face even gentler. “Which is which?”

  Saturday laughed at that. It was a comment Peter would have made.

  “You’re beautiful,” said Peregrine.

  That, however, was not something Peter would have said. Saturday screwed her face up into a scowl at the compliment in an attempt to mar whatever feature happened to be catching his overly romantic eye.

  “And you’re an idiot,” he added.

  “The two do tend to go hand in hand,” Saturday pointed out.

  “No, they don’t. Being beautiful doesn’t make you an idiot, Saturday. Being stupid does.” She felt the pressure lift as Peregrine pulled the brush he’d given her from her belt. “As a clean Woodcutter once said: You are a complete fool, and I have half a mind to throw this brush at you.”

  She wrenched the brush from his grasp and replaced it in her belt. “Stop being ridiculous.”

  “You really have no idea, do you?”

  Why did they have to talk about this? People’s outward appearance was Saturday’s least favorite subject. “Yes. I know. I can be pretty enough. I’ve been forced to dress up for a ball before, but only because my mother made me.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” He turned her face back toward the mirror. “You cannot call yourself a proper warrior if you refuse to use all the weapons in your arsenal.”

  “Pshaw,” sputtered Saturday. “Beauty is not a weapon.”

  Peregrine squinted at her. “Come now, Woodcutter. I thought you cleverer than that.”

  Beauty as power. Was he serious? But she considered Monday’s ability to capture a room with a glance and release it with a wave. Saturday could not deny there was power in that. “Fine. You’re right,” she agreed. “But I’m not—”

  “Saturday, I love you. You will always be beautiful to me.”

  Betwixt made mewling kitten noises.

  It was difficult for Saturday to stay serious. “I’m the only woman you’ve seen in a very long time.”

  “You’re the only human I’ve seen in a very long time,” Peregrine corrected.

  Betwixt’s voice echoed from the far side of the cave. “The gods work in mysterious ways.”

  “Those ways aren’t so mysterious if you’re paying attention,” Peregrine shot back.

  “Paying attention is not one of my virtues,” said Saturday. Despite that, she was very aware of how close Peregrine still stood; she could feel the heat of him through her damp clothes.

  “Everything happens for a reason,” said Betwixt.

  “That’s what Mama always says,” Saturday muttered.

  “Then it must be true,” said Peregrine.

  “You have no idea.” She could almost see the outline of Mama’s face swimming in the silver glass scolding her back to the task at hand. Peter’s, too, as if he’d come to inspire the rhymes needed to ignite her spell. Saturday’s fingers itched to perform this magic, on purpose, and on her own.

  But if any of
these mirrors were going to work, there was one face she needed to see above all others. For better or worse, she would know here and now the fate to which she had doomed her little brother.

  Mirror, Mirror, Monday’s rhyme had begun, and so Saturday’s would as well. She stared into the one still framing her and Peregrine, but she raised her voice to address the whole room.

  “Mirror, Mirror, stones and sticks,

  Show my little brother’s tricks.”

  Saturday hoped that the looking glasses—if any of them chose to wake from hibernation—forgave her vague request in light of the clever play she’d made on Trix’s name in the couplet. And then she realized she was personifying an inanimate object.

  “When I speak a spell like that, who’s really listening?” Saturday asked her companions while they waited. “Certainly not the mirrors themselves.”

  “They say gods are the conduits,” said Betwixt. “That is the reason for the rhyme: so the gods know you wish to perform a spell, with their blessing.”

  Saturday was skeptical. To the best of her knowledge, she and Peter had never drawn accidental attention with their Wood-born nonsense. And yet, she could easily picture the gods laughing at their witticisms. “The gods do have a sense of humor.”

  As if in response to her statement, five mirrors and a shard by the brazier burst into brilliance.

  Peregrine cried out and threw his arm over his face. “Gah! You’d think I would have been prepared for that!”

  The brightness had pierced Saturday’s own skull as well. As she waited for the glare to die down, she offered another one of those silent prayers to the ether and whatever god she now knew was listening. No matter what the looking glass showed her, she wanted Trix to be alive. Preferably alive and safe.

  The five mirrors showed the same vision at the same time, and then a few more joined in. The room began to warm from the magic. The familiar scene before them was the one from Monday’s looking glass, though now Saturday knew what she witnessed. Saturday watched as the earth split below her and water sprayed to the heavens. Mudslides swamped forests. Flocks of birds fled the treetops. Relentless rains flooded houses and farms. Men, women, children, and animals alike were swept away by the angry tides.