“No,” said Peregrine.
“You went straight from Starburn to this mountain, from one prison to another. No one deserves to be cursed, Peregrine, least of all you. You can open your eyes now.”
He was blushing again, but this time he wasn’t sure if it was from her presence or her words. He’d said as much to himself over the years, but like anything said too often, it had lost the weight of its reason over time.
“And yet I was cursed with you,” he said. “I don’t regret that one bit.” Now that she was clean, the urge to touch her again was overwhelming. He wanted to bury his face in her hair and make sure all the stench was gone.
“My family would likely disagree with you.” Dressed, though still damp, she’d finished with her hair, also still damp, and now stared at the small wooden brush in her large hands. “My sister gave me a brush like this once,” she said softly. “May I keep it?”
Because the request had been so genuinely polite, it caught him off-guard. “Yes,” he said, with probably more enthusiasm than he meant to reveal. She tucked the wooden handle inside her belt with its empty scabbard. She did look at him then and yanked his silver-blue lock of hair, just like a schoolboy.
“Maiden fair, oh, maiden fair,
What clever mischief do you dare?”
Her singing voice was not lovely, but it wasn’t meant to be. Peregrine responded to her schoolyard teasing by mimicking one of the scowls she loved so much and he was rewarded with an actual smile. He dared to hope a laugh might follow it, but the blinding light erased all thoughts from his mind.
The crystals in the cavern were glowing.
Saturday and Peregrine both raised an arm to shield their eyes from the glare. Peregrine heard more than saw Betwixt fly down and land with soft cat feet on the crystal boulder above them. “Look,” he said.
They lowered their arms. Peregrine no longer needed to squint at the crystals surrounding them. The harsh light was gone, as was any trace of torchlight or water’s reflection. What shone now from every flat surface they could see was the face of a skinny young girl.
This girl also tried to hide her beauty beneath formless boy’s clothes, but unlike Saturday the girl in the crystals would never be able to hide her porcelain skin, the curve of her full red lips, or her hair, thick and black as the night. Her large eyes were as blue as the twilight sky and just as full of mystery. Her dark brows, like thin raven’s wings, furrowed in concentration or determination. She seemed to be climbing a rope into the heavens, surrounded by the billowing gray sails of a ship.
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.