There was a downturn at the edges of her lips, hardly a movement at all. “Then what do you say? Are you the one at fault? Should you be punished?”
Be bold.“Try it,” I said. “We’ll see who ends up a loaf of sourdough.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I mean, um…” I coughed. “It was my decision not to marry Gervase. I don’t accept your right to judge me for it, though. So if you want to test your powers against my own, go right ahead.”
I tensed, readying myself.
My stepmother’s eyes narrowed. “Are you certain about this?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I’ve traveled far and survived a great deal, and the last time a powerful sorceress went against me, she died, and her works crumbled into dust.” I took a deep breath and curled my fingers into fists. “Take your chances if you dare.”
She nodded gravely and leaned back against her throne. “Well. It’s about time.”
I frowned. “About time for what?”
She relaxed, looking for all the world like she was sprawled across an armchair. “For you to start living up to your potential.”
“For…No.” I shook my head. “Don’t even try it. You can’t possibly be claiming everything you did was for my own good.”
“Of course it was. If you’ve traveled far, who sent you there? If you’ve survived a great deal, who put you in harm’s way? Who pushed you toward that powerful sorceress you defeated? When you refused to grow in your magic, who locked you in a tower until you had no choice? Why would I have done any of that, if not for your benefit?”
“Because you’re spiteful and cruel!” I shouted. My hair rose on an invisible wind, lengthening and reaching for her, sparks crackling from it. “And manipulative, and…and I do not believe you imprisoned me because you weretrying to be a responsible mother!”
The throne room shook. Crevasses broke open in the floor, radiating out from where I stood. The sharp scent of sulfur puffed up from below. Someone started pounding on the stone doors.
The queen smiled thinly. “You’re calling me your mother now? I suppose that’s better than the soup bowl to the face I got the last time I saw you.”
I stared at her. The rumbling and shaking stopped.
I dropped six inches to the ground—I hadn’t noticed I’d been floating—and nearly twisted my ankle. The stench of sulfur lingered in the air.
Had she been hurt I wouldn’t call her my mother?
“Are you planning to continue?” she asked. “Or does this sorcerous duel stop at the need to make repairs to the floor?”
I hadn’t thought of her as someone who could be hurt.
I’d never really seen her as a person. More a force of nature, like a storm or a forest fire. A disaster that struck without reason or care. Omnipotent and merciless.
I’d told myself a story about a mother and father who were perfect in their loving kindness and a wicked stepmother driven purely by malice. But it hadn’t been a fair comparison, because it wasn’t true, not completely. My parents, I was coming to realize, had their flaws. And my stepmother was more complicated than I’d been willing to admit.
There were many accusations I could fairly level against the queen. She was indeed manipulative. She was also ruthless, autocratic, intransigent, demanding, and overly secretive. But that wasn’t the whole ofit.
Ogres in her kingdom no longer ate human flesh. The fairies no longer stole children. The people of Skalla were peaceful and prosperous, and while they might quake in terror at the thought of stealing a peach from her garden, my father had escaped with his sweet clover unscathed.
I had seen what a truly mad and evil sorceress looked like, and it wasn’t the woman on the throne in front ofme.
“Locking someone in a tower is terrible pedagogy,” I said. “Just the absolute worst. Bitter resentment doesn’t encourage learning.”
“Nothing else was working.” She sounded almost plaintive. Less the almighty queen, more the woman who’d fallen for the doctor next door and found herself raising a rebellious stepdaughter. A memory stirred of a voice in a prison cell.Never good enough for you, no matter what Ido.
“What wasn’t working?” I asked. “Sending me off on an absurd quest to trap lightning in a bottle? Or to find an acre of land between the sea and the shore?”
“Yes.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Queen Hellebore.” When was the last time I had called her by her name? I couldn’t remember. “Maybe you could have asked for my help, if you needed it.”
