“Snip-snap-snurre-basselure. Is this a housecleaning or a tantrum?” The witch entered the kitchen through the entrance farthest from the fireplace.
Cwyn remained safely back against the wall. Smart move. Peregrine wanted to throw the pyrrhi in the fire as well. Betwixt shook his feline head in disapproval at the murderous look in his friend’s eyes, and Peregrine backed down. As a fire witch, Cwyn more than likely would have basked in the burning.
The bird’s blind mistress wandered closer, sniffing her way to the fireplace. “Dinner, perhaps? A new recipe? Or could it be . . . a spell?” This last choice made her the happiest. “I do detect the distinct presence of your handiwork! It’s been so long, I thought perhaps I imagined it. My darling daughter, walking in her mother’s footsteps! I am so proud of you.”
It wasn’t impossible for humans to perform some small magic spells, but Peregrine could evoke nothing like the elemental manipulation the lorelei played at, nor did he know how to fake that distinctive burned cinnamon smell. She had forced him to attempt working magic a few times, but the amount of energy required had drained him to the point of exhaustion within moments. He’d begged the witch to forgive the loss of aptitude she’d once seen in her daughter and allow Leila to excel at her own pace.
Now he would have to pretend he’d learned something.
“You honor me, Mother,” said Peregrine, dreading the imminent maternal contact.
The witch awkwardly hugged Peregrine, pressing her frail body against his lean, muscular one. “Tsk, tsk. So skinny,” she scolded. “We’ll have to work harder at fattening you up, my sweetie.” Peregrine attempted to block her from the fire, but she pushed him aside as she followed her nose. “What’s this?”
At the flick of a bony wrist, Cwyn crossed the room and landed on the witch’s shoulder. Peregrine wrinkled his nose at the bird in disgust. The raven squawked back at him.
“Play nice, dearies,” said the lorelei. She waved her hand; the top layer of icerock melted into the fireplace and extinguished the coal in a puff of rancid steam.
“What have we here? Lovely things. Mushrooms . . . brown-ie teeth . . . ooh, and the pungence of a nicely fermented mold.” No stew Peregrine had ever made had garnered a grin as wide as the one that now split the lorelei’s ghastly face. “And seeds. Hmm. Oh yes.”
He’d hoped that the charred seeds would be indistinguishable from the coal dust. Of more dire importance, though, was Leila’s spell book. Some things even the raven couldn’t unsee. The witch pinched the book between two blue fingers and held it up. The crisp black pages dripped purple blood.
“Cauldrons are used for more than just laundry, child. Remember that. It’s easier to alter ingredients in a pot than in the”—she sniffed the pages—“fire. Not Earthfire or coal but proper, elemental fire. Plus seeds from life yet to be, and pages from life that once was. I’ve been doing it all wrong.”
“Mother?” Peregrine hoped the witch didn’t mean what he thought she did.
The witch jumped to her feet and did a little dance. Sweeping Peregrine up into her bony blue arms she yelled in his face, “I’ve been doing it all wrong!” She kissed both his cheeks. Her breath stank of rotten brownie meat, brimstone, and chalk. Given the combination of odors already in the kitchen, Peregrine preferred kissing Saturday.
“My beautiful daughter has discovered the key! She’s a gen-ius, you know,” the witch said to Betwixt. “Shells don’t wash up too far from the tide. Thank you, my girl!”
“The key for what, Mother?” Peregrine pitched his voice slightly higher, filling his question with youthful innocence. He was afraid he already knew the answer.
“For the spell,” the witch supplied. “The only spell that matters—to open the doorway home! And you, dearest daughter, will be with me as I cross the threshold to the demon realm. We will return to the birthplace of the basselure and claim our rightful thrones as queens of our element.”
“I don’t want to intrude,” said Peregrine. “It’s your spell, Mother. This is complex magic. I’m afraid my presence will cause a disturbance.” Peregrine’s absence also meant that whatever Saturday planned, she would have to carry it out by herself.
“Nonsense, my brilliant babe! As the seed and the page, so are we the beginning and end of one life. I wouldn’t do this without you. I will have you see your mother’s triumph!”
Peregrine tried another tactic. “But I don’t have any more of these ingredients,” he pointed out. “In my . . . passion, I used them all up in this fire.”
The witch waved a bony hand over the drenched fire. “Snip-snap. I’ll just have Jack fetch them before I drain his blood for the cauldron. I think I’ll keep his eyes to replace my own. As long as there’s blood and bone, I don’t imagine the spell will miss them.”
“Poor Jack,” said Peregrine.
“You won’t mind, will you, dearest? You probably think he’s a handsome specimen, but I assure you there are plenty more men on the sea.”
“It sounds like you already have your mind made up, Mother. Who am I to dissuade you?” They were doomed. He’d come straight here and accidentally given the lorelei exactly what she needed. Peregrine had run out of ideas for thwarting her.
Betwixt, hiding on high again, was no help at all.
After a few random swats in the air, the witch found Peregrine’s cheek and patted it. “There, there. You can thank me properly later by helping me with the spell! Oh, isn’t this exciting! I must prepare. Come, Cwyn!” The witch continued her wild, swirling dance of joy, trailing her fingers along the wall to guide her way out of the kitchen area.
Cwyn did not follow right away. She stayed perched on a pillarstone by the fire, staring Peregrine down.
He stared back, thinking over his next words and actions carefully. Cwyn could not pass on his exact sentiments to the witch, but she could convey his actions through her eyes at any given moment.
Rage boiled beneath the calm he forced into his body. “This is your doing. I would never have destroyed this pantry and burned that book if you hadn’t come to Saturday spouting your messages of doom.”
Betwixt landed behind the bird, claws unsheathed. “You knew the missing pieces to the spell all along.”
The raven cackled almost as well as the lorelei.
“You’re forcing Saturday to kill the witch for you. And you’ve used me to do it.” Peregrine wanted to wring the bird’s neck and roast her for dinner.
Cwyn’s voice reverberated in his skull. Saturday could leave the lorelei to work her spell. She could let the doorway open and watch as the world burns. The choice is still hers to make.
Mind-to-mind dialogue was always painful for Peregrine, either because he had no aptitude for it, or because his brain was not used to such intrusions. He raised a hand to his pounding temples—his fingers were purple and black with soot. “She will never choose herself over the world. You know that,” he said. “You’ve known that all along.”
The bird spread her wings and took to the air. Her maniacal laughing caw echoed down the tunnels as if a murder of ravens had joined in her celebration.
Peregrine collapsed to the hard floor in the mess that had once been a fire. The only light left in the room was the one small torch he’d brought from the armory. “It seems Miss Woodcutter is not the only one destined for destruction,” he said to his companion.
Despite the cold and damp floor, Betwixt curled up beside him and placed his beaked head in Peregrine’s lap. “We can help her stop the witch. We can help her escape from the mountain before the dragon wakes. It might work.”
“And a flea might stop a giant.” Peregrine stroked the soft, downy fur behind Betwixt’s ears in an effort to calm the emotions warring in his breast. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this strongly about anything. Now that Saturday had entered his life, he seemed to be feeling everything all at once.