“No, they didn’t.” Penn shot an accusing gaze at my father.
I turned. “Father, tell him. This is all a huge misunderstanding.”
But my father didn’t deny Penn’s accusations.
“You freed me just to kill me?” my father asked, ignoring me. “That seems like an awful lot of effort when death would be welcome compared to what I’ve been through these last two years.”
“I freed you so I could finally have my revenge,” Penn said. “You betrayed your court, you started a war to cover up your secrets, and you killed my parents and lied to everyone about why.”
None of this made sense. There had to be something missing, here. “That’s what this was all about?” I asked Penn. “You didn’twant to break the mirror to save the earth court. You wanted to break it so you could have your vengeance?”
Penn didn’t move a muscle. “I didn’t lie. I wanted to help you win back your court. I truly believe you’ll be an amazing queen. But I have to do this. I promised my parents I would avenge their deaths.”
Horror washed over me as this new reality sank in. I’d been so foolish, actually believed Penn and I might have something between us. But he’d lied to me, used me, to get this mirror and kill my own father.
“Please step out of the way,” Penn said.
“No.” My fists curled. “I won’t let you hurt him. No matter what he’s done, he doesn’t deserve to die.”
“Then you leave me no choice.” He brought up a hand, and a vine slithered around my ankle and yanked my feet out from under me.
I watched as Penn pressed the sword firmer into my father’s neck, drawing blood.
“Penn.” My voice broke. “Please.”
He hesitated. For a split second, he paused, and my father slashed his hand forward, unwinding the vine from my legs and directing it straight into Penn’s chest. Penn flew backward with the impact as I screamed out, “No!”
Chaos broke loose. Vines and water shot through the air, bodies tangling, falling. Penn and my father now fought with a mixture of earth magic and weapons. My father had found one of the guards’ daggers and slashed it at Penn while directing another vine to slink from his hand and jab at Penn. The king of thieves jumped over it, just as the guards started shooting streams of water at them, trying to capture both my father and Penn. This was a disaster. I moved to stop the madness when I felt water slinking around my arms, holding them to my body.
I turned to see Gabrielle standing there, directing her water magic at me.
“I told you I’d give you a minute,” she said. “I kept my word.”
I darted a glance at Penn and my father, who were now back-to-back, surrounded by the guards, water swirling around them so they couldn’t move.
“Gabrielle, let me fix this.”
“You don’t deserve any more chances. All of you need to be thrown into our dungeons until I can meet with the other leaders of the courts and figure out what to do with you.”
“I know you’re angry with me,” I said as the water tightened, making me wince. “You have every right to be. But my stepmother is somehow connected to Sorrengard. It is in everyone’s best interest if I can defeat her and restore the earth court to its former glory.”
“Is it?” Gabrielle asked, hands still out, still directing the circle of water to constrict tighter around me. I squirmed. “You didn’t even know your own father was harboring all these secrets. He lied to you, just like you lied to me. You’re not the person I thought you were, and you’re certainly not someone I’d want to see on the throne.”
Tears sprang to my eyes because she was right. I’d lied. I’d stolen. I’d fallen for a criminal who betrayed me. All this time I’d questioned if I deserved to be queen, and now I knew the answer.
“No!” a voice yelled.
Gabrielle’s eyes darted behind me, but I couldn’t twist enough to see what she was looking at her. Her hands faltered, and the magic around me loosened enough that I could turn.
Just in time to see Penn swinging across the room on a vine, my father unconscious in his arms. He landed on a ledge.
“Get him!” Gabrielle yelled as the guards shot water magic up at Penn, water swirling through the air toward them like a minihurricane. But it was too late. Penn gave me one last look before he ducked out of the window with my father.
I felt numb inside.This should have been one of the happiest moments of my life. I’d been reunited with my father. He wasn’t dead, after all, but trapped all this time. Instead, grief swallowed me whole.
I sat on the steps leading up to Gabrielle’s throne while she sat next to me, both of us silent, neither knowing what to say after everything that had transpired.
The guards returned an hour later, without Penn or my father. They’d scoured the land but had found no trace of the king of thieves or the king of the earth court.
