Even teen evil queens need love. Right? (Or at least a handsome sword-fighting minion to do their bidding!)
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Bad things happen when Rowen is around and the worst part is, she has no idea why until a massive family secret sends her on a fantastica...
"Never share your innermost secrets with a pet, even if you think they're discreet."—Rowen Keckilpenny Brown
"How silly! Pets cannot talk."—Blade
"Very funny!"—Rowen Keckilpenny Brown
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I wrenched my sword from the loop (Which was, in retrospect, super dumb. Only an idiot would think a sword was the proper weapon to fight off a plummeting cage!)
"Minions! Seize the traitor!" Came Olivia's voice from somewhere behind the orcs, korks, gnomes, fairies, giants, dragons, unicorns, etc.
A brace of minions raced ahead. I had to stop them, and knew my one sword was no match for them. Wait! A spell! And I knew just the one. I flipped into a headstand and shouted: "Calceus ligare!" three times. The shoelaces on the minion's boots came untied and then retied themselves to the other minion's boots! It was a spectacular pileup of brawny men, like something you'd see at a football game.
A split second before the cage would've ensnared me, something shoved me from behind while I was still doing a handstand, and I fell backward, hitting the back of my head on the marble ballroom floor. My head exploded in pain as the sword flew from my grasp. I slid six feet across the slick marble surface, breathing hard, stars rocketing across my vision.
I lay there on the cold marble, slightly stunned, the room spinning as I squinted at the bright chandeliers. The full moon hovered outside the tall stained-glass windows, winking at me from behind a floating bank of black clouds, like the moon was having a good laugh at my predicament. Then there were all the varied eyes looking down at me from a veritable Noah's Ark of supernatural beings. And they also smelled like a Noah's Ark of supernatural beings—dirt, grass, fire, apples, salt, fish, leather, thunderstorms, and snow.
There were the usual suspects—dragons, fairies, gnomes, giants, demons, witches, wizards, unicorns, and merfolk, but some others were total surprises—small brown things that were almost like sentient mushrooms and robed beings with long eye stalks that looked like interdimensional space merchants who lost on their way to a cosmic flea market. So, these were going to be my royal subjects? I mean, if I thwarted my evil sister.
The room stopped spinning.
Clang. Clang. Clang. Came the sound of metal striking metal.
I slowly turned my head toward the source of the racket, only to discover my favorite minion of massive annoyance in the cage, sword-fighting with the bars. And the bars were winning because, as everyone knows, a sword is the wrong tool to use in these circumstances! So, Blade was the one who pushed me out of the way. How many times had I told him to stop rescuing me? Once this battle with Sis was over, I had to get him into therapy for his stupid Savior Syndrome.
