Saturday stood in the wagon, raised her face to the gods, and vented all her frustration at the sky.
Old Sassy startled, and Wolf snapped the reins again to keep her in check. “Worked it out, did you?”
“Why?” Saturday cried.
“Love works in mysterious ways,” said Wolf.
“No, why did he leave me?”
Wolf reached up and pulled her back into the moving wagon before she toppled out. “Look,” he said. “Some things you have to go out and do to prove to everyone else that you’re good enough, right?”
Saturday had worked hard the whole of her life to be as special as the rest of her family. The fey-unblessed sister had longed for years to leave the confines of her quiet, mundane life, until the day she finally did . . . wrecking half the countryside and blowing up a mountain to boot.
“Well, sometimes a man needs to go out and do something to prove that very same thing to himself.” Wolf drew Old Sassy to a halt. “We know just how amazing you are—in a month every child from Faerie to the Troll Kingdom will know too. This is not about you, love. It’s about Peregrine proving to himself that he deserves you.”
Wolf clicked his tongue to set the mare going again while Saturday brooded in the twilight. “That’s stupid,” she said finally.
Wolf shrugged. “I don’t make the rules,” he said. “You don’t think he’d actually go back to a betrothal after all you’ve been through, do you?”
“Yes, I do,” said Saturday. That was the trouble. Peregrine was stubbornly honorable enough to keep a promise made by someone else.
“Then let’s hope this Elodie is smarter than he is.”
Saturday and Wolf passed the next two days in companionable silence. They let the horse graze at intervals while they hunted for their dinner, and they slept under the stars. Saturday rested, letting the soul of the forest nourish her from the inside out, bringing her back to herself.
On the third day they stopped at a creek outside the borders of Faerie, and Saturday decided to test her magic once more. She took the ring from her finger and placed it in the palm of her right hand. The tiny circle of metal mocked her pain, symbolizing the loss of a sword she’d always wanted and a man she hadn’t, but loved all the same. Unbidden, a single tear fell from her cheek and landed in her palm.
Weight forced her hand to the ground. Saturday smiled down at her sword. “Hello, stranger.”
“Probably not wise to go flashing that around the halls of the Fairy Queen,” Wolf said from over her shoulder.
Saturday picked up the sword and examined it. Other than a dull sheen to the blade, it didn’t look worse for the wear. “I just wanted to see if I could still . . . if I was still . . .”
Wolf tossed down the bundle of firewood he’d been collecting. “You’re not going to get any less special, if that’s what you’re afraid of. You’ve burned that bridge. There’s no going back.”
There was a rustle of white feathers in the trees across the stream.
Saturday remained calm. She’d been jumping at birds the whole journey, and Wolf had teased her for it every time. None of them had been the pegasus. There was no reason to think this was either, until a silver-white horse emerged from the brush on angel wings.
She took her sword in both hands and forced the stupid look off her face. Her fingers and toes tingled. She told herself it was an aftereffect of the magic. Her heart knew this was a lie.
“Took you long enough,” she said as Peregrine dismounted.
“I see you got your sword back.”
“It wasn’t easy.”
“Come on,” Wolf said to Betwixt. “There’s a lovely meadow full of nice, peaceful buttercups this way.”
Saturday let them go and tried concentrating on the sword. Swing. Block. Parry. Thrust. “How’s the old homestead?”
“Not the trip down memory lane I thought it would be.” He’d crossed the stream now. “A lot changes in a hundred years.”
Saturday dropped both the sword and the pretense. They hadn’t survived two witches, an exploding mountain, and a dragon just so Peregrine could lose everything.
“A hundred years?” It was bad enough having no family left to speak of; after a hundred years, every bit of the world he’d known would have vanished completely. Saturday couldn’t imagine the loneliness.
“About that, yes. I told you time passed differently up there.”
Saturday remembered the hash marks on the cave walls. He must have had some inkling, but every time she’d asked about it, he’d evaded the question. She wondered how long a person had to be a prisoner before he stopped thinking of time altogether in order to stay sane.
“Peregrine, I’m so sorry.” She touched his jaw, dark with beard stubble. Only a few strands remained of the silver-blue streak in his dark hair. His eyes were truly green now, without a trace of black. “Leila’s curse. It’s broken? Even though she’s still alive?”
“The curse has been fulfilled,” he said. “I lived a long and fruitful life. And now I’m dying.” He turned his face in toward the palm of her hand, taking a deep breath of her scent.
“What?!” Saturday swore. “What happened in Starburn?”
“This happened long before Starburn. It started happening even before we left the mountain. Leila cursed me to die, so I am dying.”
“But you’re not ill!” cried Saturday. “And the part about losing a vital organ? We all came down from that mountain in one piece. You’re not sick, and you certainly haven’t lost your mind.” She shook her head. “I have, maybe. But not you. Never you.”
“I lost my heart,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. “That’s pretty vital.”
“Over me? No. No one should have to die for me. You can’t die, Peregrine. You can’t. I just got handed the rest of my life and I have no idea what to do with it, but I knew at least I had you. You and Betwixt and me, we all have each other. Now what do I do?” She pounded his chest with her fists. “What do I do?!”
“You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met—”
“I’m one of the only women you’ve ever met,” said Saturday.
“—and your life will be full of amazing things. You don’t need me for that.”
Saturday couldn’t look at him anymore. She stared at her feet instead, at the toes of boots that had seen the Top of the World and the edge of an ocean. “But I want you there,” she said to the ground. “I just want you, period. I love you.” She took a deep breath, inhaling as slowly as she exhaled. Damn the gods. Damn Fate. Damn everyone. “How long do you have?”
“Until I die?”
Saturday turned on him with the full force of her anger. “No, until the moon dances, you idiot.”
“Right.” Peregrine pressed his lips together. “I suspect I have only as many years left as any other mortal man.”
It took a beat for his words to register. “Why, you—”
Saturday raised her fists to punch him again, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Laughter erupted from the other side of the bush that hid Wolf and Betwixt from sight.
“That’s enough from you!” she yelled at the shrubbery. She pushed Peregrine hard enough to topple him over, turned on her heel, and went back for her sword.
“Calm down,” said Peregrine. “It’s not like I’m dying tomorrow.”
“Keep it up and you might be.” Saturday picked up her sword.
“Saturday, you can push me away all you want, but I’ll have you know that I plan to fight for you. I will fight to stand beside you, and I mean to die beside you.”
“I could run you through right now,” she offered.
“I wish you’d wait. We’re desperately low on gryphon’s tears.”
Peregrine regained his footing all too quickly, and when he turned her back around to face him, he noticed the tears she didn’t want him to see. He wiped them away for her. “We should bottle these instead,” he said. “They’re far more rare.” He held her then, like he hadn’t held her since that first cold night on the mountain after Cwyn had captured her, like she wished he’d hold her every day from now on until the end of their adventures.