Mal and Celia stood at the locked entrance of a run-down old mine shaft. It reeked of bad idea. The wire fence was marked with the same unnerving skull graphic as was on the pin Hades wore to fasten his chiton. Mal recoiled at the sight. Her eyes focused on the ominous NO TRESPASSING and GET LOST signs that covered the gate. She paused at one that read BEWARE OF DOG with a crude drawing of a foreboding Cerberus. “Hey, how big is that dog?” she asked.
“You’ll see.” Celia placed the skull-shaped key in the rusted lock and slowly opened the corroded gate. It squeaked. She entered the dark, dank shaft and motioned for Mal to follow.
Mal looked down the dodgy passageway with concern. She feared what lay at the other end of the shaft.
Celia did nothing to calm those fears. “Stay quiet,” the young girl warned ominously. “It echoes like crazy in here.”
The dog’s barking interrupted the silence, causing Mal to jump. She had a terrible feeling about this.
“Come on,” Celia said, beckoning.
Celia grabbed a dirt-covered mining helmet, flicked on the headlamp, and climbed onto the front seat of a rusted-out rail cycle. It resembled a tandem bicycle that had been affixed to the base of an old mine car. Mal breathed deeply, grabbed a mining hat, and hopped onto the back seat. The things she was willing to do for Auradon…
Celia checked the jalopy’s jerry-rigged lanterns and released the brake, and the girls pedaled into the craggy tunnel, which grew smaller with every inch they descended. When the shaft became too narrow for the mine cycle, they hopped off the rig, removed their mining helmets, and tiptoed toward a small tunnel opening. The insistent dog barking kept Mal on edge. Celia disappeared down the chute. Mal hesitated for a moment, then followed close behind. The girls paused at the mouth of the tunnel and surveyed Hades’s ramshackle chamber, which lay below. Mal was not impressed.
The god of the Underworld had converted an abandoned mining cave into his sooty make-do personal lair. The rocky walls were slick with minerals. Rotting support timbers stood throughout. An azure scarf covered a wobbly lampshade, bathing the entire room in a blue haze. With black sunglasses covering his blue eyes, Hades sat deep asleep on a shoddy throne. The immortal god’s feet were perched on the armrest.
The vicious dog bark continued to pierce the air. Mal leapt with alarm and looked around frantically for the rabid Cerberus—until she noticed Celia indicating an old record that was circling on a dusty turntable. Okay, so she didn’t need to beware of an actual dog. Still, Mal couldn’t help feeling that the mission was ill-fated.
Celia locked eyes with Mal, nodded to the side, then pointed. Mal followed her gaze. Smack-dab behind Hades’s snoring head sat a small etched dish that held the coveted blue ember. Mal looked at Celia and nodded confirmation. Then she slid into the villain’s private quarters.
Mal crept nimbly through the disheveled chamber and angled toward the blue ember. The space was dead quiet except for the canine recording, which rasped and scratched in an irksome way. Annoyed by the grating sound, Celia decided to lift the needle on the prehistoric record player—just as Mal stepped behind the slumbering Hades. The needle scratched with an eeeeee!
Hades awoke with a start at the sound. He lifted his sunglasses; his blue eyes shone clear and alert. “What are you doing here?” he bellowed.
His voice sent chills down Mal’s spine. Caught, she froze in place and desperately searched her brain for a clever excuse. Then Mal noticed Hades wasn’t speaking to her.
“I noticed you were low on canned corn,” said Celia. It was a plausible pretext for Hades’s errand girl. Unruffled, Celia walked right up to Hades, reached into her coat, and confidently tossed an expired can of corn at the once-powerful villain. Mal had to hand it to Celia; that girl was one fearless, smooth criminal.
With Hades’s attention directed at Celia, Mal seized her opportunity to take the ember. After everything Mal had done in Auradon to prove her goodness, it felt funny to be stealing again. But she reasoned that this small crime was okay because it was for a good cause. Drawing on all her old thieving skills, Mal squatted down, stretched out her arm, and, without making a peep, nabbed Hades’s ember from its battered and tarnished silver stand.
Unfortunately, her action didn’t go unnoticed. As if he had eyes in the back of his spiked blue hair, Hades raised his hand and grabbed Mal’s wrist behind him. He sneered forebodingly and snatched the ember right out of her hand. Rats, he was good!
Mal, caught in Hades’s vise grip, had no choice. The moment she’d been dreading more than any other had finally arrived. Her stomach dropped. There was nothing left to do but face it head-on.
“Hello, Dad.” The words felt foreign on Mal’s tongue. While it took a lot to shock Celia, her mouth dropped open in disbelief.
The name sounded strange to Hades’s ears as well. He let the word roll around in his head for a moment before responding. If it affected him, he didn’t let it show. He simply removed his sunglasses and waved nonchalantly at his daughter. His nails were painted blue.
“Quite a show you put on the other day,” said Hades, sizing up his daughter. He bored into Mal’s soul with his eyes.
“Back atcha,” Mal said flippantly to her estranged father. Mal might have been trembling inside, but she refused to show her father an ounce of fear. He didn’t deserve that kind of satisfaction. She hadn’t seen Hades in years, and this was twice in one week. Lucky her.
“I was just coming to see you,” Hades said, flashing his magnetic smile. He could be so charismatic when he wanted to be.
“Really? Wonder why. Is it because I’m going to be queen?” Mal said. Her tone brimmed with contempt.
Hades shook off his daughter’s implication. “Now, Mal, don’t be bitter.”
“You abandoned me when I was a baby,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. She had every right to be bitter.
“No, no,” Hades said, sounding ornery. “I left your mother. She’s not the easiest person to get along with.”
“Ya think?” spat Mal.
“Ya see?” said Hades. “We have something in common already. We both hate your mother.” He laughed at his own warped sense of father-daughter bonding.
“No, I don’t hate my mother,” said Mal, her eyes challenging Hades. “She may be an evil lunatic, but at least she stuck around.” Mal surprised even herself by defending her mom. She didn’t usually land on Team Maleficent. But this was different. This wasn’t about Maleficent; it was about Hades and the indisputable fact that he had never been there for her. She looked at her father with disdain.
Hades’s veins bulged from his neck and he erupted in aggression. “Oh, boo-hoo, wake up and smell the stink. You think you’ve had it rough?” he said, recalling his glory days. “I used to be a god. I had an entire world which bore my name. And now I have nothing.” For emphasis, he threw to the ground the can of corn, which landed with a clank. “You have no idea what that feels like.”
Mal held her own in the fight. “Really? Because for sixteen years I had nothing. And now I have a whole world. But unless I get that ember, it’s game over.” She stuck out her hand expectantly.
Hades was unimpressed with Mal’s trivial teenage drama. As a god, he’d seen everything over the centuries. A destroyed kingdom and a lost boyfriend—those were ho-hum problems. He wasn’t about to pity his daughter or show her kindness. He’d parent her the way he always had. “I gave you everything by giving you nothing,” he claimed with a surly sneer. By his logic, his absence all those years had only made Mal stronger. His daughter was a problem-solver now because he hadn’t been there to run and fix things for her. Or at least that was what he told himself.
Mal fumed. Did Hades expect her to believe that feeble explanation? Come on. Hades had done whatever was best for him, and they both knew it. The only reason she was paying him a visit was that she needed something—and that something wasn’t him. It was his ember—to save her friends.
For all their differences,
when they stood in such proximity, both brutally speaking their minds, the father-daughter resemblance was uncanny. Hades noticed it and reached for Mal, but she pulled away.
“Do you want to make up for being a lousy dad? Give me the ember,” Mal said.
“The ember only works for me,” snapped Hades.
“No. It’ll work. We’re blood,” said Mal, suddenly remembering and feeling very grateful for her Auradon Prep class the Study of Magical Objects.
Hades held up the ember, rolled it between his fingers, and taunted his daughter. “You’re only half Hades. The ember won’t do everything for you that it does for me.”
Mal looked her father straight in the eyes. “I’ll take my chances,” she countered, calling his bluff.
Hades stared at Mal for a good while and in that moment understood that this was his chance to do something fatherly. He whirled the ember around his fingers, handed it to his daughter, and warned her, “If it gets wet, it’s game over.”
Mal snatched the ember and motioned to Celia, and the two girls were out of there.
Hades stared at the tunnel entrance for a moment and allowed the smallest flash of pride to cross his face. “That’s my girl,” he mumbled to himself.
Celia and Mal walked through the dark tunnel. “I guess that’s the reason why he’s always asking about you,” said Celia.
Mal stopped in her tracks and raised her eyebrows, surprised to learn Hades had ever shown an interest in her. “Evie is the only one who knows that he’s my dad,” she told Celia. “And as far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t even exist.” Yet here she was, clutching his ember tightly in her hand.
Mal followed Celia through the mine, lost in thought.
I guess it stands to reason that if my friends and I could choose good, that goody-goody class president could choose evil.
Ben held his cell phone in his right hand, ran his left hand through his hair, and paced his palace bedroom. He was in full king mode, all authority and confidence, calling the shots and getting things done. “No, no. I want the Auradon guard handing out gas masks….Well, not everyone is asleep.” He threw down his phone and pointed at the royal attendant who stood watch at the entranceway. “Find out if anyone’s seen Audrey.”
The young man nodded in acknowledgement and headed toward the door.
Suffocating from frustration, the king unsnapped the collar of his blue-and-yellow leather jacket and fell into his chair with an agitated sigh. “And find out if she has a list of demands,” Ben ordered.
Ben heard her voice before he saw her. “Just one, Benny Boo. I demand my life back,” Audrey said.
Ben spun around, startled. Audrey creeped behind him. Her wicked transformation was utterly shocking. She looked stunningly evil.
“I have a proposition. I’ll wake everybody up right now—under one itty-bitty condition, Benny Boo,” she said, her eyes glinting with a dark scheme. Her fingers crawled up Ben’s arm until she held his face in her hand. “Make me your queen and we’ll rule side by side.” From Audrey’s perspective, she belonged on that throne; it was her rightful place in history. She, not Mal, was born and bred for the royal life.
Ben looked at Audrey like she was off-kilter. He slowly removed her hand from his cheek. “Did someone put a spell on you?” he asked his former girlfriend. “Just tell me who and I’ll—”
“What? Marry them?” Audrey quipped, and giggled at her own joke. “Most people get dumped because they’re not good enough. I wasn’t bad enough. How do you like me now, Benny Boo?” She twirled around and modeled her ravishing new style for her ex. Gone were Audrey’s signature pink frills; they had been replaced by deep mauve, black lace, and black feathers. She looked even more the part of the alluring enchantress than she had at the museum, with the queen’s crown glinting on her head.
Ben shrugged earnestly. He didn’t care for her metamorphosis. “I liked the old Audrey better,” he said honestly. “She wouldn’t want to hurt Auradon. Just give me the scepter and I’ll forgive you.” He meant it. Ben’s sole goal was to keep his kingdom secure. He was willing to pardon Audrey in exchange for the guaranteed safety of his citizens. King Ben held out his open hand and hoped Audrey would come to her senses.
Audrey grew furious. “You’ll forgive me?” She pointed her finger at him. “I don’t think so! Sleeping is too good for you!”
Her eyes gleamed with malicious intent. A snarl took over her face. She thrust her scepter toward Ben and released a crackling hex. She grinned at the results with glee. That spell had worked better than she’d expected.
Next she turned her sights on Auradon City. Audrey stood on Ben’s balcony, peered out over the entire kingdom with mad delight, and released a condemning curse on all the people below. “Sleeping is too good for Auradon.” A menacing flash blanketed the kingdom.
At that very moment, Fairy Godmother was running up the steps of the museum to obtain her wand. As the evil magic washed over her, the Auradon Prep headmistress was turned instantly to stone. The same frozen fate befell hundreds of others all around the kingdom. Audrey was quite pleased with her sorcery.
I knew that Shrimpy girl would be back, ugh!
Mal and Celia returned to the Isle’s destitute Bridge Plaza to meet up with Jay, Carlos, and Evie.
“All right, let’s get in, let’s get out,” said Mal. They needed to open the barrier and sneak through without any trouble.
Jay clicked the remote, the barrier flickered open, and they darted through with stealthy moves.
Mal squeezed Hades’s ember tightly in her palm as she crossed onto the bridge to Auradon, desperate for the ember to work for her as it had for Hades. And it did. The ember ignited into dancing blue flames the moment it hit the magical land. Then, with a flash, the glowing power shot straight through Mal. Its effect on her was instantaneous. Her signature purple hair became streaked with blue tones, and her purple vest turned midnight blue. Even her wedge high-tops and fingerless gloves boasted painted blue flames. Mal looked down, stared at her altered clothes in shock, then twirled a strand of her bluish hair with intense fascination. “Huh,” she said. She guessed there was more of her dad in her than she’d realized.
Evie, Carlos, Jay, and Celia circled Mal, checking out her new look from every angle.
“Wow,” Evie said, impressed.
“Man, that thing packs a punch,” said Carlos, nodding toward the glowing ember.
Before any of them could question why Hades’s ember had affected Mal as it had, Jay gasped, then turned the group’s attention to the Isle side of the bridge. “Look,” he shouted with urgency.
Mal was grateful for the distraction until she saw what Jay had spotted.
Harry Hook and his sidekick, Gil, somersaulted through the closing Isle barrier and landed safely on the bridge. It was just as Beast had predicted: every time they opened the barrier, another villain—or, in this case, villains—escaped.
“We made it!” exclaimed Gil, his eyes wide with amazement. For the first time in his life, he’d stepped foot off the Isle.
“Bro!” yapped Harry as he and Gil bro-hugged it out. They’d done it! They’d busted out of the Isle. Harry turned toward Mal and her friends. “Hey, guys,” Harry said, chuckling. “We just came for a wee visit.”
Carlos and Jay tried to block the pirates’ path. As the two groups collided mid-bridge, Celia hung back coolly and enjoyed watching the fracas like a spectator. According to her father, there was no sense in picking sides until a clear winner was declared.
Mal, on the other hand, tried to intervene. “No, no, no, no, no,” she uttered, hoping to keep the pirates from going any farther. Harry shoved Carlos in an effort to get by. His strong push sent Carlos tumbling into Mal. Mal staggered off-balance, causing the ember to jostle free from her grip. She desperately tried to grab the escaping ember, but Harry’s hook scooped around her fumbling hand before she could nab it. The bright blue ember sailed high into the air and out of Mal’s reach.
“N
oooooooooo,” screamed Mal. She watched helplessly as it plummeted toward the deep dark water below. Any chance of saving Auradon from Audrey was extinguished the moment the ember got wet. Mal waited with agony for the telltale splash.
But the dreaded splash never came. Instead, a long, slimy turquoise tentacle emerged from the sea. It stretched to its impressive full length and skillfully snatched the ember out of the air. With a whoosh, Uma, in her part-octopus form, rose grandly from the rough waters and gripped the powerful ember.
Mal had to hand it to the sea witch: she knew how to make a splashy entrance.
Uma looked magnificent, wilder, and more in her element than she had at Cotillion. She wore a turquoise sweetheart-necked bodice that perfectly framed her mother’s golden shell necklace. Her tentacles swirled through the water with grace and ease. She tossed back her long turquoise hair, which was braided at the crown of her head and fell loose below her waist.
“Drop something?” she asked with a wry smile. The ember sizzled, dulled, and grew weaker in her dripping grasp.
Mal was unsure if she should feel relieved or panicked to see Hades’s ember in Uma’s hand—er, tentacle. For all the ways she had imagined Uma’s returning to Auradon, she’d never dreamt up this scenario—her archnemesis cradling the single object that could save the kingdom. This definitely called for panic.
“It can’t get wet. Give it back before it goes out,” yelled Mal.
Uma laughed mischievously.
Mal wasn’t the only one surprised to see Uma. “Uma!” shouted Harry and Gil in unison. The scallywags were excited to see their long-lost captain.
“That’s my name,” said Uma, still balancing the dying ember. She glowed with confidence and gave her friends a coy wave. Then she wrapped her tentacle tightly around the ember and sank into the dark water.
“No!” shrieked Mal. All was truly lost.
Uma’s marvelous gold shell necklace brightened beneath the waving sea. Then a whirling burst of water gushed upward out of the ocean’s roiling surface, exploded, and rained back down on everyone who stood on the bridge. Mal and her friends were drenched. They scrambled to the side railing, expecting to see a tentacled Uma rise dramatically from the sea once more. But there was no sign of her.
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