They found the road to the abbey from the air. Upon it rode a wide, flat wagon with a single driver who appeared intent on the same destination.
Betwixt landed before the great walled entrance to the abbey just as the wagon arrived. The climbing roses that covered the bricks reminded Saturday of the roses surrounding the Woodcutter house. To the left of the grand archway, crimson petals bloomed like bloodstains. The roses to the right of the archway bore petals of the purest white.
The large mahogany doors of the abbey opened before the party was halfway through the courtyard. A slip of a woman with a mop of red-gold curls burst out onto the stone porch and flew down one side of the split stair, while another woman in stately burgundy robes gracefully descended the other. Peregrine dismounted and helped Saturday down from Betwixt’s back. She locked her unsteady knees, bracing herself for the impact of Thursday’s embrace.
“Saturday.” Her sister breathed her name into the skin of her neck opposite her ragged ear. “You have no idea how good it is to see you.” Thursday backed up to hold her at arm’s length. “You look like hell.”
Saturday shook her hair into her face to hide the worst of the damage.
Erik, not to be outdone by the Pirate Queen, caught Saturday up in a quick hug. “Missed you, Giantess.”
“Back at you, Hero.”
“Perhaps I should be calling you that.”
“Some strays have followed you home.” Thursday nodded to Peregrine and Betwixt. “Spoils of war?”
Peregrine swept his skirt back in a half-bow, half-curtsey, as if he wore royal robes instead of ancient rags. “Peregrine of Starburn. This is my companion, Betwixt.”
Betwixt stepped one foot forward, spread his wings to either side, and bowed his head low. The effect was incredibly impressive.
“You’ve got stories,” said Erik.
“We all have stories,” said the abbess.
Saturday bowed to her aunt. “Hello, Aunt Rose.”
“I’d say ‘well met,’ dear niece, but I suspect none of us has glad tidings this day.”
“Don’t hug her,” warned Thursday. “She smells like the devil’s stable.”
The driver dismounted from the wagon’s seat and removed his hat. He was a scruffy, hirsute man with eyes like the storm they’d flown through to escape the dragon.
“Wolf.” The abbess held her hands out to greet him.
He kissed both her cheeks and then knelt to kiss her ring of office. “My beloved Rose Red.”
“I had not foreseen that this day would bring such a bounty.” Rose Red shot a glance at Thursday. Thursday, who possibly knew all of this from her spyglass, looked away. “I believe it would be best if Saturday and her companions were properly bathed and clothed before we go any further. Erik, would you see Betwixt to the stables?”
“No need, Your Eminence.” In a flash of light, the pegasus was replaced by a scruffy young boy with stubby horns, a short beard, and goat’s feet. Betwixt, in his new form, bowed again to the abbess.
If this act surprised Rose Red at all, she did not show it. “All children of earth are welcome in the home of their Mother Goddess. Shall we?” As they entered through the large doors, the abbess waved her hand and several acolytes appeared.
Thursday grabbed Saturday’s hand and pulled her along. “Come on, Miss Molasses,” she said. Of all the Woodcutter sisters, it was no surprise that she and Saturday most often repeated this particular phrase of Mama’s.
Erik led Peregrine and Betwixt in the opposite direction. Saturday hadn’t realized until that moment that she wasn’t truly comfortable leaving her companions. Peregrine’s eyes met hers across the foyer and he nodded that he would be all right. Saturday hoped that was true. Everything was changing so fast.
“Where’s Mama?” she asked.
“Inside,” Rose Red said calmly. “I’ll see to her. You may join us in the chapel when you’re ready.”
“Thank you,” she told her aunt. If Mama saw her like this, who knew what conclusions she’d jump to. She let Thursday drag her to the women’s chambers.
The acolytes filled two tubs for Saturday. She’d need them. This bath was a far cry from the crystal lake with its hot springs, but it came with large cakes of soap. Saturday stripped quickly and jumped in, eager to scrub the curses and weariness out of her skin.
Thursday spoke to the waiting acolytes and they left quickly with the dirty things. “I had them fetch you some proper clothes,” she said, and Saturday thanked the Earth Goddess (whose house she currently stank up) that her companion was the sensible sister. “Do you know you’ve been missing for more than a month?”
Had she really? “It felt like only days,” said Saturday. “But time passed strangely on the mountain where we were held. Where is your ship?”
“I was dubious of your fickle ocean,” said Thursday. “I told Simon Silk to leave at the slightest inkling of magic, with or without me onboard. At the first sign of green lightning, he was gone.”
“So you’re stuck here?”
“I’ve been landlocked before,” said Thursday. “Don’t worry. I’ll find my ship. If she doesn’t find me first.”
“Trix is alive,” said Saturday. “I saw him in a magic mirror. But you already knew that.”
“I knew the lingworm had saved him, but I do not know his plight. My spyglass has spotted him only once since then. Speaking of . . . where’s your sword?”
Saturday sank beneath the surface of the water to put off answering. “Lost,” she said when she came back up for air. She lathered the soap into her hair a third time for good measure. It smelled of lavender and rosemary, sweet and green and alive.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Things have a way of turning up again in the strangest of places. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about your ear. May I have a look?”
Saturday only acquiesced because Thursday didn’t make a big deal about it. Friday would have fainted dead away. It wasn’t painful anymore, but Saturday was genuinely curious as to how the stump of it had healed.
“It’s not bad, actually.” She felt Thursday trace the scalloped edges where her lobe had been, and the cauterized scar tissue beneath it. “It looks rough, but you’ll be able to hide it well enough with your hair until the color fades. I’ve seen worse on my ship.”
“I imagine so.”
“Men who fight trolls regularly learn not to get too attached to their limbs,” said Thursday. “The price of adventuring.”
“It was a witch,” explained Saturday. “Of the evil demon variety.”
“Ugly breed.”
“She locked me in a cage and used my ear as an ingredient for a terrible spell that would have torn the world apart. I had to stop her.”
“Did you kill her?”
Saturday could have said a thousand things. She’d had no choice; they had to escape; she was saving the world. But the only answer she gave her sister was “Yes.”
“Did you stop the spell?”
Among other things. “After breaking the world, I felt I had no choice.”
“Fitting, then, that your flesh and blood were part of the equation. Fortune favors the blood, you know. I fully believe Luck has always smiled upon our family because of all the Woodcutter blood Jack has spilled into the ether.” Thursday’s lips curved into one of those wry smiles that hid secrets, but Saturday was too tired to let it frustrate her. “Do you feel different, having killed someone?”
“She was a beast,” said Saturday. “I’ve hunted beasts before.”
“Not like this, you haven’t, and you know it.”
Saturday stood up from the warm bath and dunked herself into the cool one. Soap and herbs and dust remnants merged into a film on the surface. “Killing the witch set us all free, including the dragon that slept in the mountain. I should have tried to kill it, too, while it slept, but I didn’t.” And now every bit of damage it did to the countryside would be on her head.