Peregrine followed the woman down the long hallway, straight through to the kitchens at the opposite end of the house.
He couldn’t recall what the kitchens of Starburn had looked like before he left, but he marveled at them now. Floors that could be swept, a pantry for storing dry goods, and air that smelled of wood smoke—wood!—instead of brimstone. There would be chickens beyond that back door, and cows, for eggs, milk, butter, and cheese. Mixing bowls and dishtowels made of proper cloth, not something an ancient soldier had worn up the side of a mountain to meet his death.
The woman stood before a low cupboard that faced away from them, still holding his golden cup. “Never seen a kitchen before, great man?” she teased.
“The kitchen where we were kept was far more humble,” Peregrine answered honestly. “We didn’t have a lot of the luxuries this house affords.” Like windows. Or daylight.
“It’d have to have been a fire pit and a stick broom to be less extravagant than this,” said the man.
“No sticks at all,” offered Betwixt. “May we sit?”
The woman nodded and gestured to the small table beside the chopping block.
“As I said before, I’m Peregrine—”
“If you like,” said the man.
“—and this is my companion, Betwixt.”
“Pleasure,” said the woman. She opened the cupboard, examined the contents inside, and then joined them at the table with the cup. “I’m Gretel. This is my brother, Hansel.”
“God of the North Wind,” said Hansel, letting loose a rowdy fart in illustration.
“Impressive,” said Betwixt.
“If you really are Peregrine of Starburn,” said Gretel, “and I’m not saying you are, when did you leave these lands?”
“Right after my mother’s funeral,” said Peregrine. “My father was still lying in state when my mother died. The living death took everything he had, and then everything my mother had, in the end. I wasn’t the bravest of sons; staying here was simply too much for me to bear. I collected a handful of men at the funeral and left after the first mass with an eye to embarking on the adventure that was to be my life.”
“What was the name of your horse?”
Gretel had used the past tense; Peregrine gave up hope that his faithful steed might still be alive. “Scar. Ugly as his name, but the finest piece of horseflesh east of Arilland.”
Hansel pounded a fist on the table, as if Peregrine had got the answer right (well, of course he had), but Gretel put out a hand to curb her brother’s enthusiasm.
“And who did you leave in charge of accounts?”
“Hadris,” Peregrine said without hesitation. The estate accounts were something Hadris, the earl’s steward, did anyway, but Peregrine had made a formal announcement to the effect before he’d left, to allay any doubts.
Hansel pounded the table again.
“As I live and breathe,” said Gretel.
Peregrine finished the story for them, one they could have only known from the perspective of the men in his party who’d lost him in that tiny grove of trees by the streambed that day. “We stopped at a creek to rest on the way to Cassot. A fairy found me there and offered me a wish and a drink. But she wasn’t a fairy, she was the daughter of a witch—a demon—who lived high in the White Mountains, at the Top of the World. She cursed me to take her place there, in her guise, for as long as I lived . . . or until I escaped, which was only a few days ago.”
Hansel eyed Peregrine’s outfit dubiously. “In her guise? Skirts and all?”
“Skirts and all,” answered Peregrine.
“The sinking ocean,” said Hansel. “The rising forest. The chaos rain. That was you?”
“Afraid so,” said Betwixt. “We woke a dragon on our way out. It’s pretty angry.”
“But I’ve come back to set things right,” Peregrine said, before the rest of them got lost in the twisted tale of the escape. “I don’t know what that witch has done to my lands, but I intend to fix it. I promise you both, I will fix this. But first, I need to make my amends to Elodie of Cassot.”
Gretel sighed. “We’ve kept three frivolous things in all this time. We’ve sold off the rest of the estate, bit by bit, but even when the walls were bare and the well dried up we kept them. It was our uncle’s dying wish.” She hopped off the chair and went back to the low cupboard, from which she removed three pristine, jewel-encrusted golden goblets. His own goblet completed the set.
She returned to the table and put her hand over Peregrine’s own. For such a small thing, it was exceedingly warm. Or he was just exceedingly cold. “You’ve been gone a hundred years, milord,” said Gretel gently. “Elodie of Cassot is dead.”
Peregrine stood up fast, knocking the stool over in his haste. Elodie waiting, he had been prepared for. Elodie forgetting him, he had been prepared for. A hundred years passed and Elodie dead and gone had never crossed his mind.
“Pour our master a drink, Hansel.”
Betwixt righted the stool and Gretel guided Peregrine back to the table. Hansel handed him a glass—actual glass!—of a tawny brown liquid that burned his nostrils. Peregrine forced himself to take a swallow, and it scorched a path of Earthfire down his gullet. He handed the glass to Betwixt, who gulped the rest of the contents whole.
“Forgive me, but this is easier for me to tell as a story,” said Gretel. “You’ve only ever been a story to me.” Peregrine nodded for her to go on. “When Peregrine of Starburn vanished on the way to claim his bride, people across the country were devastated. Gossip began to spread that there was a curse on Starburn, that none who lived here would ever be able to find true happiness.”
“They weren’t far off,” said Hansel.
Gretel ignored her brother’s interruption. “Not long after, a young lady appeared at the castle, claiming to be a cousin of the Earl of Starburn, and thus its rightful heir. She was the most beautiful creature anyone had ever seen, possibly the most beautiful woman in the world. And because she was so beautiful, everyone believed her.”
“What did she look like?” asked Peregrine, but he already knew.
“Hair and eyes as black as the midnight sky, skin a dusky olive hue, and everywhere she went, it smelled like cinnamon.”
Leila, it seemed, had not simply cursed Peregrine to take her place at the Top of the World. She’d taken his place here in Starburn as well.
“She was not as kind as she was beautiful. She cared nothing for people, only power. She traveled the world in style, attending party after party, drowning herself in one extravagance or another until Starburn was bankrupt. When there was no blood left in these stones, she married a dark prince from a kingdom west of Arilland and was never heard from again.”
“It is said she lives there still,” added Hansel. “That her beauty never dies. Just like you.”
“The witch’s daughter,” said Peregrine. “Leila. She had that kind of power.”
“I would believe that now,” said Gretel.
“She only ever had us call her Mistress,” said Hansel.
“And how do you two fit into all of this?” asked Betwixt.
“Our birth was seen to be part of the curse on this estate,” said Gretel. “I was the first petelkin, and then my brother. Our mother died in childbirth. No woman was brave enough to bear a child in Starburn after that.”
“I’m sorry,” said Peregrine. “But I am glad that Leila didn’t force you to leave.”
“She couldn’t.” Hansel smiled proudly. “Because of the contract.”
Gretel explained. “Before Peregrine left these lands, he publicly gave power of his estates over to his steward.”
“Hadris,” said Peregrine.
“By virtue of that power, none could remove Hadris or his family from these lands, not even the dark mistress herself.”