Page 114 of Mirror of Malice
“It doesn’t,” Shadow said like I was an idiot, like I was missing something obvious. “In fact, some of us, whom I won’t name, were adamant that this was a fool’s errand.”
“When did Penn give these orders?” I asked. “We’ve been in Apolis for over a week.”
“At the fire court, after you rescued us. He told me to get back to Mosswood Forest and do whatever it took to get these two”—she jerked her head—“out.”
I sat back in a stunned silence.
“Okay,” Driscoll said. “So let me get this straight. You got rescued?—”
“Kidnapped,” I corrected.
“By some hunk of a guy who turns out to be the king of thieves. You escape from him, and he chases you across the continent, then he has your two best friends rescued, even though it doesn’t benefit him in the slightest. You two have spent over a month together now.” Driscoll looked around. “Yet he’s nowhere in sight. I need some explanations here. Specificallyabout why you’re not currently sticking your tongue down his throat and getting some because, hot damn, he is one fine specimen.”
My mouth hung open while Jillian smirked and Shadow hid a smile behind her hand. “You don’t even know what he looks like.”
“We saw him the night he rescued you. His hood fell down when he grabbed you from your cell and swung with you like a freaking man-ape out of the prison cell.”
My shoulders slumped. “Oh. I thought maybe you’d seen him recently, somehow saw him on his way back to Mosswood Forest.”
Which obviously wouldn’t have been possible, given that he’d stolen a ship.
Driscoll and Jillian shared a look.
“What?” I asked, drawing the cloak closer around my body.
Jillian squinted at me. “You care for him.”
“I did care for him,” I said. “Until I found out he was a lying bastard.”
My heart betrayed me in that moment, squeezing at the thought of him, at the thought of how much I wished he were here right now. But he wasn’t. He’d run away and left me now that he no longer needed me.
Jillian leaned forward. “What happened in Apolis? Shadow was able to catch us up on everything that happened up until she left you and Penn to complete the mission to destroy the mirror. Did you destroy it?”
I huffed, not wanting to relive the last nightmarish twenty-four hours but knowing I had to open up to someone before my bottled-up emotions destroyed me.
I started talking, the words pouring out of me until I’d told them everything that had happened in the last two weeks.
Well,not everything. I left out the lingering glances, the make-out sessions, the earth-shattering sex. They didn’t need to know all that.
Everyone sat in a stunned silence, staring at me.
“Your father was in the mirror?” Jillian asked.
“And now he’s dead again?” Driscoll asked.
“That’s why Penn wanted that mirror so badly,” Shadow said. “We all knew it must have been about more than just destroying it to hurt your stepmother.”
That took me aback. “You mean to tell me you didn’t know the true reason he wanted the mirror?”
Shadow shook her head, those gold hoops of hers swaying with the movement. “Penn found out your stepmother had that mirror years ago, and he’d been working on a plan to retrieve it. None of us understood why it was so important to him to find it. He claimed it had a dark power, that in the wrong hands it would be dangerous, as we later saw happen with your stepmother. But there were many dangerous objects scattered around the continent, and Penn didn’t care about any of those, just the mirror. He’d send us on missions to retrieve items for the people of Mosswood Forest, but his sole focus these last few years has been on finding a way to destroy that mirror.”
Now all the conversations I’d overhead between him and Wayfinder made sense, why Penn was so obsessed with work, why he had no time for fun and games. His vengeance drove him, gave him purpose.
It made me feel sad for him.
“We all told him there were more important things to worry about,” Shadow said. “Like his people, like freeing Mosswood Forest so we didn’t have to be thieves anymore. But he was single-minded in his focus and wouldn’t listen to any of us.” Shadow sighed. “Fuck. Your father. Your father was trapped in that mirror. The man who killed Penn’s parents, who waged a war on us to hide his secrets.” She looked at me over the firelight. “I’m sorry you had to find out that way, about your father. That’s not how it was supposed to happen.”
Jillian’s eyes shone with tears. “I’m so sorry, Lil. I never suspected... never even thought your father was capable of that kind of evil.”
