“Have been my whole life,” said the guard. “So have the rest of these men. In fact, the only bachelor in Arilland not in love with your sister is the one whose arm she’s on.” Erik swung the wooden sword Velius had handed him in wide circles, stretching out his muscles and warming up to spar. “So, what did you ladies talk about? Girl secrets?”

Saturday didn’t know the first thing about girls, or their secrets. “She asked me who I was.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Nothing.” She thought about it again briefly, but those thoughts were instantly swept under storm winds and rains and the cries of the doomed from the magical glass of Monday’s mirror. Saturday shook it off. Who was she? She knew who she wanted to be: an adventurer. Someone about whom stories were told, like her brother Jack. But right now, she was neither of those things. “Yeah, I got nothing.”

Erik settled into an attack position. “I beg to differ. You got a sword and a destiny. That’s more than most people get.”

“I guess so.” That damned sword again. It was time to find out who she was without it, before she was Monday’s age and still had no idea. Saturday unbuckled the swordbelt with difficulty and tossed it in the dust by the fence. The vigor she’d been feeling immediately left her limbs, and her muscles began to ache. She picked up the wooden sword that Monday had left behind and prepared to die once more.

“Let’s go,” she said.

2

Distraction

THE MESSENGER came as Mama was making dinner. It was a proper messenger this time, not the usual itinerant troubadour curious about the family of legendary Jack Woodcutter and willing to trade dubious ditties of derring-do for a crust of bread and a dry patch of hay for the night. Saturday was the first to dash for the door. Whoever answered the door got out of doing ridiculous household chores for as long as it took to deal with the company.

The boy on the stoop looked about Trix’s age, or at least the age Trix appeared to be. With his strong fey blood, Trix would always appear younger than his foster siblings, and it would be his fate to outlive them all. But this messenger boy—assuming he was human—could have been no more than thirteen or fourteen. He had no pony, and his skinny bones stuck out at sharp angles from underneath his tattered clothing. Over those bones was skin of a hue that Saturday knew from experience was due more to birth than to long hours under the unforgiving summer sun. When the boy took his hands off his knees and straightened, skinny chest still heaving with breath, he looked up at her with kaleidoscope eyes of green, blue, and yellow. Straight black hair stuck out from under his dusty cap like the bristles of a horse brush. He was from the south, then, somewhere beyond the perilous desert sands. Had he run all the way from there? Judging by his ragged shoes, it was entirely possible.

The boy eyed her as if he expected something. Money? No one in his right mind would approach a shack like this with dreams of riches, however great or small. He put a hand to his chest and coughed dryly into one bony elbow. “Water,” he managed to croak, at the same time it occurred to Saturday. She barreled through the empty living room and the full kitchen to the pump in the backyard, her sword sheath banging against her calf as she ran. She heard Mama call, “Who’s that at the door?” before telling Papa to go and see. Papa slowly rose from his usual resting place by the kitchen fire and dutifully obeyed.

Everyone obeyed Mama. They didn’t have a choice. That was her gift. Everything Mama said came true, so Mama didn’t talk much except to bark orders to her husband and children. Aunt Joy said Mama didn’t speak because she was lazy. Mama said it was the only way she knew how to live a normal life.

Saturday thought they were both full of beans. As the only normal member of the family, Saturday knew good and well that Mama was nothing like normal at all.

Saturday worked the hand pump until the water ran clear, then rinsed out a dry bucket before filling it and toting it back into the kitchen. “Come in, son.” Papa’s booming voice echoed through the house. He led the boy into the kitchen and sat him at the table between Peter and Trix. Saturday handed the boy a dipper full of cool water and he drank greedily. He wiped his mouth on the back of an unclean hand and said without ceremony, “I come to Seven Woodcutter from the abbess.”

The statement meant nothing to Saturday, so she looked to Peter for guidance. Peter looked at Papa. Papa looked at Mama. The hand with which she’d been stirring the stew had gone still. “Rose Red” was all she said.

“The very one,” said the boy.

“My sister,” Mama reminded the rest of them. “Youngest but for me.”

“Six,” said Peter. Mama nodded.

As if naming your children after a day of the week wasn’t silly enough, Granny Mouton had numbered her daughters One through Seven. Over the years, they had all taken other names: Sorrow, Joy, Teresa, Tesera, Snow White, and Rose Red. Only Seven had remained Seven.

“I come from one sister with news of another,” the boy said eloquently, as if he were reading a letter. “Tesera is dead.”

Tesera. The fourth sister. Trix’s wayward actress mother. Papa walked over to where Mama stood by the fire and eased her into a chair. Trix hurried over, took the spoon from her hand, and resumed stirring the stew. Mama’s face was wistful and sad. Trix’s face was turned to the fire. Saturday could only guess how her foundling brother felt about the death of the woman who’d handed him off as a baby to be raised by someone else.

“The abbess asks that you come to her,” the messenger boy said to Mama.

“Yes,” Mama said automatically. Her voice sounded far away. “Of course. Right away.”

“Where is the abbey?” asked Peter.

“To the east and north,” said Mama. “On the plains between the mountains and the sea.” It sounded far. Very, very far. Mama rarely even left the yard. Her sister was asking her to leave the kingdom altogether.

“How will you get there?” asked Saturday. Surely Mama wasn’t expected to run in the footsteps of this scrawny boy.

“Sunday,” said Papa. Clever Papa. His youngest daughter was Queen of Arilland now, with her bright and generous nature intact. She would happily give Mama a carriage and horses and whatever else she needed to make the trip north. Sunday would also be distraught on behalf of her favorite brother . . . far more distraught, it seemed, than Trix himself.

Saturday didn’t understand Trix’s lack of reaction. Happy or sad or otherwise, Trix always felt something, and plenty of it. Now his face was turned to the fire, his back to the room. “Don’t you want to go?” she asked him.

“No,” Trix said quietly to the stewpot.

“Probably for the best,” said Mama. “I must ready my things.”

“What’s your name, son?” Papa asked after the boy had drained another dipper full of water.

“Conrad, sir.”

“Conrad. I would have you run one more errand today if your legs can manage it. You will be well rewarded.”

Conrad’s grimace at the mention of another run melted away at the word “reward,” but he still seemed skeptical. He twisted his grubby hat in his grubby hands and nodded at Papa.

“Do you know how to get to the castle near here?”

The boy’s dark hair flopped as he nodded. “I saw a tower on the horizon that scraped the clouds. Most of the roads lead there.”

“Yes. Go there and say you have an urgent message for my daughter the queen.”

Conrad sat up straighter. Smart boy. He was in the presence of the royal family, after all. Not that it made Saturday feel any different.

“Tell her what you told us, and ask her to please send a carriage. She will see you properly recompensed.”

Conrad popped out of the chair and snapped to attention like a jumpy summer insect. “Right away, sir!”