The soiled rags lay in a puddle at her feet. Above them stood a statue of uninterrupted golden skin, save for that thin blue-green bracelet at her wrist. She was built like a man, her incredible upper body tapering down to a small waist, thin hips, and strong legs that went on for miles, but there were subtle curves there, if one knew to look for them. Her unfortunately matted hair—short in the back and long in the front—did not mar the perfection that was her body. Peregrine was fit and lithe himself, but he was nothing compared to this monument of womanhood now framed by equally giant and exquisite crystals. She raised her arms straight out to the sides, revealing little in the way of breasts, and in one fluid motion dove neatly from the boulder into the clear crystal water beneath them.
She took his breath away. His visions of this woman instantly morphed from enjoyable and innocent to absolutely torturous. He needed to concentrate on something else, quickly, before he completely embarrassed himself.
“Impressive,” said Betwixt.
It all happened so fast that by the time it occurred to Peregrine to look away, she was already gone. He averted his gaze anyway, and busied himself by picking up her filthy clothing with as few fingers as possible and tossing it down to the water’s edge. He took his time retrieving the sack from the cart that contained the fresh change of clothes he’d brought for her, as well as a hairbrush for her lank locks and a horse brush with which to clean her clothes. If they were beyond saving he’d chuck them in the privy cave. As his talents at fabric restoration had grown, he’d found few things in these caves beyond saving.
He carried all these items back to the water’s edge, keeping his head down to watch his footing, and then tended to the washing. He glanced up only to make sure she had surfaced again, even though her intake of breath echoed in the crystal chamber and gave her away.
“If you swim gently along the edges of the pool, you’ll find a yellowish sediment on some of the ledges. Rub it into your skin and hair—it’s nothing like soap and smells a bit like rotten eggs, but you’ll find it does a fair job of tackling the grime.” Peregrine addressed the stains on her shirt instead of the dirty blond head bobbing in the water not ten feet from him. He did not raise his voice; the echo carried his words adequately.
“Aren’t you coming in?” She asked the question in her normal voice, too strong for this chamber, but the tone was lighter than it had been. Peregrine could tell she felt better, and he was glad. “The water is lovely,” she said, more softly this time. Almost sweetly. “And that skirt looks warm.”
Right now, his skin felt hotter than the sun. No, Peregrine had absolutely no intention of going into that water. No, indeed. Not tonight. And never in her presence. “I’m fine, thank you,” he replied. “You enjoy it. I brought a brush for your hair, if you want it.” Without taking his eyes off the clothes, he nudged the wood-handled brush closer to the water’s edge.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Saturday.
Peregrine dunked her soiled clothes in the water again, sprinkled them with sediment, and attacked them with the horse brush. Dirty clothes. Must get them clean. Very dirty. Whenever she was finished, they would unload the moss and pick ingredients for a stew. Didn’t need to unload the sacks tonight—that chore could wait for another day. Peregrine dunked the clothes again. Very dirty clothes.
“Hello?” said Saturday.
“What? Nothing,” said Peregrine. “I’m fine.”
Betwixt choked back a laugh, or a hairball. Either way, Peregrine continued ignoring his traitorous friend. He could blame his flushed cheeks on the fumes wafting off Saturday’s dirty clothes. The clothes she didn’t happen to be wearing.
“Come, now. You act like you’ve never seen a girl without her clothes on before.”
“I haven’t, actually.” Peregrine said the words under his breath, but they reverberated throughout the crystal chamber regardless. He braced himself for the raucous laughter he felt sure would follow from his companions, but none came.
“Seriously?” Saturday asked.
Peregrine soaked the clothes again and wrung them out. “Serious as a night without stars.” From what he could tell, what looked like dirt on the shirt and trousers was only stains now.
“Don’t you have any siblings?” He could tell by the sound of her voice and the slap of small waves that she had drifted closer to where he was sitting. She would choose the moment when he was at his most uncomfortable to ask him about his life.
Betwixt continued to subtly hack up hairballs. Peregrine wished fleas upon him. “My father suffered from a forgetting sickness,” he explained. “My mother felt it unwise to have more children. I was promised to a girl named Elodie of Cassot when she was a small child, but I never saw her again after that.”
“Forgetting sickness? I’ve never seen such a thing,” said Saturday.
“And I hope you never do. It is a living death, where a man’s mind dies, yet his body lives on.”
“That’s horrible.”
“You have no idea. We began to notice it, my mother and I, in the summer of my seventh year. He forgot small things at first, like phrases and appointments. Over the next few years he began to forget his past, and then his present. He forgot about Starburn—he could no longer leave his bedchamber because every room was strange to him. Finally, he forgot how to speak altogether. Mother dedicated her life to him, long after every memory he had of her was gone. I tried to be a son for as long as I had a father who remembered me.”
“How long did he last?” asked Saturday. “His body, I mean.”
“Too long,” answered Peregrine. “Long enough for me to hope he would die and put us all at peace. A terrible, selfish thing for a son to wish on his father.”
“But a sensible one. I assume his body finally complied?”
Peregrine laid the clothes out to dry. “It did. My mother followed him soon after.” He leaned back against the jagged crystal rocks and looked at her. She idly rubbed sediment in her hair while he talked. The fabric bracelet at her wrist looked dry as a bone.
He forced himself to remain calm while he handed her the brush for her hair; he was amazed his pounding heartbeat didn’t echo in the chamber louder than his voice. “I took my horse and escaped directly after the funeral, so eager was I to finally get away from that prison and on with a life of my own. I left Starburn in the hands of Hadris, my father’s—my—steward.”
“And you trusted this Hadris?”
“Enough to leave him in charge of the only world I ever knew,” said Peregrine. “Leila met me on the road from Starburn. She pretended to be a fairy granting me a wish.” He took up his long black and blue locks and shrugged with both hands full of hair. “I hate this stuff, but I can’t cut it. The curse won’t let me.”
“What did you wish?” asked Saturday.
“To live a long and fruitful life until I lost my mind—”
“—or any other major organ,” added Betwixt.
“Thought I was quite the clever young man for that bit,” said Peregrine. “In hindsight, I probably deserved what Leila did to me. It was rash to leave like that, and not at all honorable. My father would have been ashamed.”
“What?” Saturday gritted her teeth and growled at the ceiling. “Oh, you are a complete fool. I have half a mind to throw this brush at you.” What she did instead was worse: she lifted herself out of the pool.
Peregrine closed his eyes, thought about solemn things, and listened for the telltale sounds of her dressing.
“If I were your father, I would have wondered why you didn’t run away sooner. Do you honestly think he would have been happy knowing that he’d trapped his wife and son for so long? Would you wish the same upon your son? Or upon anyone for that matter?”