Page 18 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire

I can’t conceive of my sister confronting Peg Ironteeth and walking away with a ring, but when my hand brushes the band in my pocket, I know that must be true. The iron comes from Peg. Somehow, in my marrow, I can feel it. Perhaps my imagination has been rather limited when it comes to Ceridwen.

“I know,” says Peg. “How did you come by it, mayfly?”

I lift my chin and meet her gaze. “I stole it.”

Peg rubs her hands together eagerly, and Neirin gives me a wide-eyed look.

“A liar and a thief, Habren?” he says. “Oh, I have got lucky with you.”

“Habren.” Peg tastes my name on her teeth, then grimaces. “Oh no. That’s not her name. Far too sweet for a bitter girl.”

Neirin holds my gaze but replies to Peg. “She’s clever.”

“And what will she pay?”

“I won’t give my name,” I say quickly.

“I didn’t ask what you won’t give, girl; I asked what you will.”

Her house bursts with trinkets and treasures; even her cloak is burdened with them, tied into the hair that shrouds her. Despite her strangeness, she reminds me of an old grandmother, guarding the past in a decaying house, the point of the hoard impenetrable to anyone who isn’t her.

“Neirin tells me you’re a collector.” I take a step forward.

I feel Neirin’s attention shift to me as he realizes what I’m doing—lying. It makes my own observation sound more certain to pretend it came from him. This is novel for Neirin. I hope he is as entertained as I am nervous.

“Much like the little lordling himself.” Peg’s eyes flit to him. “And, like our mutual friend, I have many tastes to be satisfied.”

“Like what?”

Her smile sticks, but her eyes roam freely over my face. “I’ve always enjoyed the human and the ordinary.”

“I cannot give myself,” I tell her. “I am to be the champion, after all.”

“I ask only for a part of the whole.”

“What part?”

Peg hesitates, the grasp on her cane tightening. “Your one beauty. Your hair.”

My hand shoots for my mass of knotted curls. A golden blond with streaks of honey in the sun, falling to mid-back. Presently tangled and slightly dirty. Mam used to love brushing my hair each night. A girl at school said I didn’t deserve it, then she tried to rip it from my head.

I can’t help but question what Peg asked from Ceridwen.

I’m sure it wasn’t anything so hard to give.

My hand falls away. I’ll not be powerless, and I’ll endeavor not to be so vain as to cry over my loss.

I nod reluctantly.

Peg rises. Tools hang from her like she’s a housekeeper bearing hundreds of chatelaines. They clink as she walks, and, for a moment, I hope she won’t be able to find the scissors in the fray, but her gnarled fingers reach for them immediately and pluck them free.

She advances and Neirin looks at me. His dark brows knit together, but he remains silent. I wonder if he will find me half as tolerable without my one beauty.

Hair grows back. I shouldn’t care—I don’t care—but I cling to the ends of my curls for a moment like a child would grasp at a blanket.

Peg raises the scissors. She reeks of burning fabric, cooking flesh. Blood. I release my hair and step toward her. Somewhere behind me, Neirin sucks in a sharp breath.

I lay a hand flat at the edge of my jaw, catching my hair. “No more, no less.”

Peg tilts her head, a spider contemplating the fly. “Who are you to bargain with me?”

“I’m the champion.” I hold her gaze defiantly. “You need me. You all need me.”

I don’t see her hand move, but one second I am burdened, and the next, my head feels light as a feather. Lighter than I have ever known it. My hand shoots up to the clean line along the edge of my jaw.

Peg clutches my curls close to her body, smells them.

I want to be able to tell you that I’m above worrying about vanity, and that my performance of bravery mere seconds ago wasn’t an act at all, but we both know it isn’t the truth.

All I feel is misery as I look at my lost gold on the floor and wonder how much plainer I must look without it.

I barely register Peg as she rises and sweeps the spare strands from my shoulders.

She tucks my hair into her cloak as if it will warm her.

My face creases in disgust, and I wear my revulsion as an armor when I look down at Peg.

“My weapon,” I remind her.

Peg scowls. “I haven’t forgotten, mayfly. First, though, look at the state of you.”

“You cut my hair!” I bite back.

“I don’t mean your hair.” Peg returns to her cauldron. “The filthy dress you run about in.”

I look down at my nightgown—the same nightgown I had gone to bed in three days ago. I’ve faced a king and whatever Peg is, bargained with them both, looking like this.

Peg jerks her head toward the door. “There are trunks out there. Take what you want. I am loath to see one of my weapons in such a shabby hand. Besides, I’ve always liked the brave and desperate ones.”

I meet her eyes questioningly. “Which one am I?”

“Both” is all Peg has to say before she shoos me away. “Now, boy, I know you’re good with metal.”

Peg reaches into her own mouth and, with great, groaning effort, rips out an iron tooth. I flinch away, stomach churning. Black blood oozes from her lips as she holds the long shard—far too long, it seems, to have been in her gum—over the cauldron.

Neirin flourishes his long fingers, and the iron melts like ice to drip into the brewing pot.

I stare at him open-mouthed, but he only smiles back.

“What? Did you think I was just a pretty face?”

I school my expression back to indifference. “Well, yes, actually.”

“So, you think I’m pretty.” He winks.

I leave Peg and Neirin with a huff. In the corridor, I go for the nearest trunk and yank it open.

There are riches and wonders in abundance, of course, and beaded fabrics sparkling among the mess, but those won’t do.

I suspect they may be previous payments made to Peg, thousands of tributes paid over the centuries.

Eventually, I find a trunk of discarded clothes and claim a new set of bloomers, stockings, a shift, a billowing white shirt that ties at the collar and a mossy skirt with flower-embroidered braces.

I dress quickly, and there’s a matching moss-green coat too, with long puffed sleeves and gold buttons in the shape of leaves.

The weave is a heavy wool unlike any I’ve worn before, and I savor the slide of the silk lining as I draw it on.

“Habren!” Neirin calls.

I return to find him standing by the cauldron, where Peg holds a shining blade aloft.

Its gold hilt, fashioned with silver ivy creeping over it, shines in the firelight.

The ivy encroaches on the base of its blade, which is narrow and precise, but so tiny—so slim and flimsy-looking—that I feel rather affronted.

My hair in exchange for something so small seems like a poor deal.

“That’s a toothpick!”

Peg only chuckles and begins polishing it, as if I said nothing at all.

I loom over her. “Answer me, witch. You took my hair and for what?”

“Habren,” Neirin cautions, but I don’t heed him. I’m sick to death of fairies and their silly little tricks.

“You are only small, mayfly,” Peg says calmly.

“I’m taller than most girls in town.” I turn my nose up indignantly.

“Then what a stunted species you humans must be.”

I jab a furious finger. “You are all rude and—”

She seizes my wrist and pulls me in close, her cold, clammy lips brushing my ear as she whispers so low only I can hear.

“You’re not the first mayfly to buzz around that apple thinking it’s a feast. Don’t forget, he’s rotten underneath.” She pushes me away with a dry laugh.

Neirin takes the blade and marches me out of the cottage, our exit plagued by Peg’s twisted shrieks.

He thrusts the rapier into my arms once we are outside, and I clutch it awkwardly.

I’ve never even fenced before, but now I have a rapier of my own and who knows how many targets waiting somewhere deep beneath the ground.

“Must you antagonize everyone?” Neirin says as the door slams shut behind us.

I roll my eyes. “Must you teg turn everything into a silly game?”

“She was right to make this for you, Habren—this rapier will be easier to wield.” He gives me an uncertain look, then jerks his head back toward the cottage. “What did she say to you?”

Neirin didn’t hear Peg because she didn’t want him to.

That cryptic sentence was for me and me alone, so I keep my mouth shut and let her words settle in my ears.

They feel meaningless, a nonsensical taunt from a witch.

I catch my reflection in Peg’s dirty window.

I almost jump. The girl staring back at me is a stranger.

My curls are bouncing against my jaw, and I look almost boyish, but, to my surprise, my heart doesn’t sink.

I grip the sword hilt tight, and this foreigner, this girl straight out of a storybook who wears my face, mirrors me.

“Ah, more secrets.” Neirin’s eyes find mine in our shared reflection. “Will you be considered ugly in your village now?”

I shrug, still unable to tear my eyes away from my reflection. That’s never happened before.

“I was always plain,” I tell him. “Now I get to be interesting.”

I laugh and see the expression light up my face as I realize exactly why I’m so fascinating now.

“What is it?” Neirin asks.

“I look like Joan of Arc.”

He squints at me. “Who?”

I chuckle at the scholar who doesn’t know much at all, not really.

“Perhaps I’ll tell you someday,” I say, and lead him once more to the woods.