Hero (28 page)

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.

“What?!” Saturday swore. “What happened in Starburn?”

“This happened long before Starburn. It started happening even before we left the mountain. Leila cursed me to die, so I am dying.”

“But you’re not ill!” cried Saturday. “And the part about losing a vital organ? We all came down from that mountain in one piece. You’re not sick, and you certainly haven’t lost your mind.” She shook her head. “I have, maybe. But not you. Never you.”

“I lost my heart,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. “That’s pretty vital.”

“Over me? No. No one should have to die for me. You can’t die, Peregrine. You can’t. I just got handed the rest of my life and I have no idea what to do with it, but I knew at least I had you. You and Betwixt and me, we all have each other. Now what do I do?” She pounded his chest with her fists. “What do I do?!”

“You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met—”

“I’m one of the only women you’ve ever met,” said Saturday.

“—and your life will be full of amazing things. You don’t need me for that.”

Saturday couldn’t look at him anymore. She stared at her feet instead, at the toes of boots that had seen the Top of the World and the edge of an ocean. “But I want you there,” she said to the ground. “I just want you, period. I love you.” She took a deep breath, inhaling as slowly as she exhaled. Damn the gods. Damn Fate. Damn everyone. “How long do you have?”

“Until I die?”

Saturday turned on him with the full force of her anger. “No, until the moon dances, you idiot.”

“Right.” Peregrine pressed his lips together. “I suspect I have only as many years left as any other mortal man.”

It took a beat for his words to register. “Why, you—”

Saturday raised her fists to punch him again, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Laughter erupted from the other side of the bush that hid Wolf and Betwixt from sight.

“That’s enough from you!” she yelled at the shrubbery. She pushed Peregrine hard enough to topple him over, turned on her heel, and went back for her sword.

“Calm down,” said Peregrine. “It’s not like I’m dying tomorrow.”

“Keep it up and you might be.” Saturday picked up her sword.

“Saturday, you can push me away all you want, but I’ll have you know that I plan to fight for you. I will fight to stand beside you, and I mean to die beside you.”

“I could run you through right now,” she offered.

“I wish you’d wait. We’re desperately low on gryphon’s tears.”

Peregrine regained his footing all too quickly, and when he turned her back around to face him, he noticed the tears she didn’t want him to see. He wiped them away for her. “We should bottle these instead,” he said. “They’re far more rare.” He held her then, like he hadn’t held her since that first cold night on the mountain after Cwyn had captured her, like she wished he’d hold her every day from now on until the end of their adventures.

“So,” he said finally. “You love me.”

“You loved me first.”

He hugged her tighter. “And don’t you forget it.”

There was a smattering of applause at Peregrine’s declaration. From the shadows and the fireflies stepped the figure of a thin young man with a quiver of arrows at his back and a bow slung across his chest.

“Trix!” Saturday ran and embraced her little brother, bow and all.

“Watch it, sister, you’re armed.”

She let her sword fall to the ground again. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Trix reached up, took her face in his hands, and kissed both cheeks. “I’m sorry too,” he said. “Will you ever forgive me?”

“Hmm.” Saturday scrunched up her face in thought. “Well, I’d make you promise to do the washing up for a month, but since I don’t think either one of us is going to see the towerhouse for a while, how about you just owe me one?”

“Deal,” said Trix. He spat in his hand and they shook on it.

“It is so good to see your face,” said Saturday. “I missed you.”

“Really?” asked Trix. “I didn’t miss you. You were with me the whole time.”

“Was I?”

“Oh yes. Every time I needed to be strong, I thought of you, and you gave me your strength.” He pointed to the blue-green band at her wrist. “And every time you needed my strength, I gave it to you. Didn’t you notice?”

Saturday ran her finger across the strip of fabric with her siblings’ hair inside it—even Jack’s, now. She had thought it was the magic of the mountain funneling through her the whole time she was imprisoned—and maybe it was—but it was her family’s strength, too. That strength and love had let her shift the ring back into a sword, once the Top of the World was a distant memory behind them. “I did,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Once or twice I swore I could even hear your voice,” said Trix.

Peregrine and Saturday exchanged glances, remembering what had happened in the cave of mirrors. It was probably best that particular room had been consumed by Earthfire.

“Amazing thing, magic,” said Peregrine. “I’m Peregrine, by the way.”

“Trix,” he said as they shook hands. “I’m the reason Saturday got into all this mess.”

“I fell in love with your sister in the middle of this mess,” Peregrine replied.

“Really?” said Trix. “Which sister? I have seven, you know.” Saturday grabbed Trix before he could get away and tickled him mercilessly, as they had done back home, before she’d broken the world. She didn’t know how much she’d needed that until just then. Who’d have ever thought that one day she’d long for a moment of normal life?

“How did you find us?” Saturday asked when they’d caught their breaths.

“A brownie told me,” said Trix. “A wild one, from a tribe I’d never heard of. He showed up at the Hill spouting all sorts of wild tales about dragons and witches and falling off a mountain. Said he was rescued by a bad-tempered giant in a skirt. I can only assume he meant you.” Trix examined Saturday from head to toe, and then Peregrine, in his long, full coat. “Then again, maybe he meant you,” he said to Peregrine. “Either way, I’m here. We need your help, Saturday.”

“I’m here to give it,” said Saturday. “Who’s ‘we’?”

“I come to you as the emissary of the Queen of Faerie,” Trix said in his noblest voice.

“Do you, now?” asked Saturday.

“I speak to the animals,” he said. “And for the animals.”

“So it’s the animals who need help?” asked Saturday.

“Yes. And the Queen of Faerie, too. And . . . well . . . pretty much everybody in the whole world.”

“Again?” said Peregrine.

Saturday sighed melodramatically. “Typical. You in?” she asked Peregrine.

“Always,” he answered.

“Same here,” said Betwixt as he emerged from the bushes.

“I’m headed in that direction anyway,” said Wolf.

“Saturday,” Trix whispered, “why didn’t you tell me you have a
pegasus?
”

Saturday planted a kiss on her brother’s cheek before he could cringe away. “Trixie, dear, I have a lot of new surprises. Do we need to leave now?”

Trix looked up at the clear night sky. “We can wait until dawn.”

Wolf’s eyes flashed yellow in the darkness. “Sassy and I don’t mind traveling through the night if you don’t.”

“Then let’s go!” cried Saturday.

Peregrine tugged at her elbow. “One quick thing.”

“Make it snappy.”

He pulled Saturday into his arms and kissed her soundly.

Somewhere on the forest floor, a sword shifted back into a ring. Somewhere above them, a silver moon danced among the clouds. Somewhere on a peak in the White Mountains, a dragon drifted lazily through the air. And somewhere on the borders of Faerie, Saturday Woodcutter embarked on a new adventure.

As their lips parted, Saturday smiled up at the gods. Those troublesome bards could sing all they pleased—she’d won her prince after all. She tossed her short hair in the forest breeze and laughed until two strong hands captured her head and turned it to the side.

“Ah . . . beloved?”

“Yes, dearest?”

“What on earth happened to your ear?”

Publishing is an interesting exercise in time compression and expansion. For instance, it took me almost five years to write
Enchanted,
but it took many of you less than a day to read it. Similarly, in between writing the dedication for
Hero
and the writing of these acknowledgments, my beloved grandmother, Madeleine DeRonde, passed away.

Much like Peregrine’s father, Memere suffered from Alzheimer’s disease—a terrible, horrible thing that sneaks up on you too gradually to notice until it’s too late. By the time my first book was published in 2006, Memere no longer remembered who I was. I still love her with all my heart and miss her every day. I know she would be proud of my silly, shiny books; I only regret not being able to share them with her in this life. So I am here to tell you all right now: Thank those heroes in your life, every single one, as soon and as often as you can.

I would first like to thank the female athletes of the London 2012 Summer Olympics and my sword-wielding angel Lillie Rainey for being personal inspirations for Saturday. Thanks also go out to the staff of Luray Caverns in Virginia—I couldn’t have created the Top of the World without you!

Big hugs to everyone who made my 2012 Summer Book Tour a reality—I am lucky to have so many friends that I consider family, and I’m honored to be the recipient of your support. Thanks once again to Adam, Turtle, and Josh of the Adam Ezra Group for seeing me off in style, and my undying love to Drew and Laura Williams, Edmund and Terry Schubert, Casey Cothran and Todd Muldrew, Soteria Kontis and Charles Nadolski, Vicki and David Castrucci, Cris Garrick, J. P. and Wendy Stephens, Darra Cothran and Bob Gahagan, Tillman and Laurie Smoot, Cherie Priest, Ken and Marilyn Harrison, David B. Coe, J. T. and Randy Ellison, and Chuck and Lillie Rainey for opening their homes to me as I went about my travels.

Janet Lee, whom I will always admire—thank you and Mike for letting me be your Comic-Con buddy. Thank you to all the members of my convention families, new and old—I would never be able to live without you. And thanks to my dearest Heather Brewer, Kate Baker, Mary Rodgers, and Leanna Renee Hieber for keeping my soul intact during dark times.

Huge mountains of gratitude also go to my crack team at Harcourt—especially Reka Simonsen and Jennifer Groves—for understanding my subversive sense of humor and putting up with all my emails. Nor could I have done all this without Deborah Warren, the best Fairy Godagent a princess could ask for, and Katherine Kellgren, who brought my characters to life in such a way that I fell in love with them all over again.

Last but not least I must thank the members of my very large family. Memere would be happy knowing that she brought together not only a plethora of cousins and friends I might otherwise have never met, but also the four Kontis siblings: Cherie, West, Soteria, and me. I hope the planets align again sooner than seven years from now. And to Joe, Kassidy, and Ariell—my Fairy Godfamily—thank you for keeping my feet tied to the ground while I reach for the stars. You are my heart, and I love you all more than these humble words can say.

M
Y NAME IS SUNDAY WOODCUTTER
, and I am doomed to a happy life.

I am the seventh daughter of Jack and Seven Woodcutter, Jack a seventh son and Seven a seventh daughter herself. Papa’s dream was to give birth to the charmed, all-powerful Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Mama told him seven girls or seven boys, whichever came first. Jack Junior was first. Papa was elated. His dream died the morning I popped out, blithe and bonny and good and gay, seven daughters later.