“But also the hippos. Such lovely teeth. It’s such a talent, really, to prune a bush into the shape of a hippo. Don’t you think?”
“Yes, but about the meeting…”
Audrey laughed again, and it was a tinkle of fairy bells chiming in the wind. Ben realized then that she hadn’t heard a word he was saying.
Maybe it’s better this way. She doesn’t understand what I’m going through, and I don’t think she ever will.
Audrey must have seen the frown on his face, because she paused to take Ben’s hand in her tiny, perfectly manicured fingers. “Don’t worry about it, Ben—everything will work out. It always does. You’re a prince, and I’m a princess. This is the land of Happy Endings, remember? You deserve nothing less than everything your heart desires. You were born to it, Ben. We all were.”
Ben stopped in his tracks. He had never thought about it like that. It was implied, certainly, in everything they did and everything that was done for them. But to hear the words themselves, from such beautifully shaped, perfectly pink lips…
Why us? How did we luck into this life? How is that fair? To be born into a life without a choice in the matter, without the freedom to be anyone else?
She laughed. “Don’t stop now, silly. I have something to show you. Something perfectly perfect, just like today.” He allowed himself to be pulled—like any good prince in the hands of a maiden princess—but his mind was still far away.
Is this all there is?
Is this even what I want for my life?
They had circled the garden, and now Audrey led him into a secluded patch of wildflowers. A beautiful picnic was laid out on the grass amid the blossoms, in a woodland vale filled with all manner of happy forest animals nuzzling, chirping, and hopping all about. “Isn’t it amazing? I had half the groundsmen and three cooks working on it all morning.” She leaned in to nuzzle Ben’s cheek. “Just for us.”
She pulled him down to the embroidered silken blanket. Her initials, intertwined with those of her royal parents, were stitched into the fabric beneath them. The gold silken thread sparkled like sunshine in the grass.
Ben smoothed a loose curl away from the blush of her rosy cheek. “It’s lovely. And I thank you for it. But—”
“I know,” she sighed. “I didn’t bring any cream cakes. It was all I could think about when you mentioned them. I do apologize. But we can sample a good seventeen sorts of other pastries.” She held up one shaped like a swan, with chocolate wings. “This one is sweet, don’t you think?”
She all but cooed at the pastry. Ben pulled away.
He shook his head. “But don’t you ever wonder if there’s more to life than this?”
“What could be more than this?” asked Audrey with an uncharacteristic frown. She put down the swan. “What else is there?”
“I don’t know, but wouldn’t you like to find out? Explore a little. Get out on our own and see the world? At least, see our own kingdom?”
She sucked chocolate off her finger, and even that was distractingly cute. Ben wondered if she knew it. He suspected that she did.
Then she sighed. “You’re not talking about that awful island, are you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Don’t you ever think about it? How weird it would be to live trapped in one place? Under a dome?”
It was, in fact, the first time Ben could ever remember seeing his princess’s princessy feathers ruffled. She wasn’t even pouting now. She was practically almost nearly slightly irritated.
“Perhaps, darling, they should have considered that before undertaking a life of evil and villainy—which could only lead to an eternity of punishment.”
Now Ben was intrigued. He had never seen her like this, and wondered for a moment if he didn’t prefer it. At the very least, they were finally having a real conversation.
“You have to admit, an eternity is a rather long time.” He shook his head. “They’re captives, Audrey. At least here in Auradon, we can travel anywhere and everywhere we please. They can’t.”
Audrey smiled brightly. “Yes, which reminds me. I told Aziz and Lonnie we would be visiting them today. Carriage picks us up in an hour.” She leaned forward, touching his chin with her fingertip. “Time for a new topic. Almost a whole new world, you could say.”
But Ben had a stubborn streak in him that wouldn’t give it up. “Don’t try to change the subject, Audrey. Come on. Don’t you wonder about them at all?”
“The villains?”
“Yeah.”
Audrey sat back, shaking her head. “No. Good riddance. Mother says one of them tried to put her to sleep for a hundred years! After she’d already spent her entire childhood in foster care and protective custody! My own mother! And then that same horrible woman turned into a dragon who tried to kill Papa.” She shivered. Audrey must have had heard the story more times than she cared to say, Ben understood, but she’d never mentioned any of it to him before today.
He didn’t blame Audrey for not wanting to talk about it, and he softened his voice now, taking her hand.
“Her name is Maleficent,” said Ben, who had studied his fairy-tale history. His mother had read the old tales to him, before he could even read himself. “She was the Mistress of Darkness, the most evil fairy who has ever lived.”
Audrey’s frown deepened. “Don’t say her name here,” she whispered. It was practically a hiss, she was so upset. “She might hear you—and curse you! She takes away everyone and everything my family loves.”
Now it was Ben’s turn to smile. “No way—that dome will hold them forever.” He leaned forward. “And who exactly does your family love?”
Audrey smiled in return. One blink, and the storm in her eyes was gone.
“My family loves all who are good and kind and deserving of such love, Your Highness.” She held up her delicate hand, and he kissed it obligingly.
I shouldn’t give her such a hard time, Ben thought. Not after everything her family has been through.
“Dance with me, sweet prince,” she urged.
Ben stood up and bowed. “Happy to please my lady.” Dancing in the forest was her favorite thing to do, he knew.
Ben held her in his arms. She was beautiful. Perfect. A princess, who was in love with him. And he was in love with her…wasn’t he?
Audrey sang softly, I know you, I walked with you, Once upon a dream…
It was their song, but this time, it caught him off guard.
With a start, Ben realized he didn’t know her. Not really. He didn’t know her soul, her dreams, and she didn’t know his. They didn’t really know each other.
And worse, he had never dreamt about her. Not once.
For Audrey, that song might be about him. But for Ben, that song wasn’t about her.
No.
Not Audrey.
He had dreamt about another girl.
One with purple hair and green eyes glittering in the dark, a sly smile of mischief on her lips.
Who was she? Where was she? Would he ever meet her?
And would he ever get her out of his head?
Ben closed his eyes and tried to focus on the melody and the girl right in front of him, but the memory of the girl from his dream was too hard to forget.
For the next several hours, Mal, Jay, and Evie helped Carlos with the painstaking task of finishing his mother’s laundry. Or, to be more specific, Jay and Evie helped Carlos, while Mal “supervised.”
For a woman who lived on a semideserted island full of ex-villains, Cruella sure had an elaborate wardrobe, Mal thought. There were fringed scarves and silky black gloves, fishnet stockings and slinky black dresses, chubby wraps and whisper-knit cardigans, bulky coats and frilly corsets. Cruella De Vil might be exiled, but that didn’t mean her clothes were going to be anything less than stunning.
Mal looked around at Evie, who was humming as she folded black-and-white towels. The blue-haired princess had been relatively easy to sway, which boded well for when they actually found the scepter.
Mal would make sure Evie would be the first one to touch it, absorbing the curse and falling asleep for a thousand years. It was the evil scheme to end all evil schemes, and Mal was looking forward to sweet revenge, as well as picking up straight E’s for the semester.
Meanwhile, Jay was up to his elbows in suds washing a number of black-and-white sweatshirts.
“Isn’t this a lot of work?” she asked, feeling exhausted just from watching everyone.
Carlos nodded, his mouth full of safety pins.
“And you do it all?” she asked Carlos. Her mother might ignore her and resent her and scold her, but at least she wasn’t Maleficent’s virtual slave.
Carlos nodded again. He pulled the safety pins out of his mouth and explained that he was pinning a bustier on a hanger just the way Cruella’s old favorite drycleaner in London had. “Yes. But you get used to it, I guess. Don’t worry, we’re almost all done.”
“Thank goblins” said Mal, putting her feet up on a nearby ottoman.
But just as they were putting the finishing touches on the last batch of black-and-white clothing and linens, they heard the roar of a car engine. It screeched to a stop in front of Hell Hall.
Carlos began to shake. “It’s her…Mother…she’s back…she wasn’t supposed to be back till tomorrow. The Spa must have dried up.”
Mal wasn’t sure why Carlos was so jumpy. No one was as scary as her mother after all—what on earth could he be so freaked out about?
A car door slammed, and a heavy accent raspy from too much smoke and yelling rang through the air. “Carlos! Carlos! My baby!” Cruella cried, her throaty voice ringing through the house.
Mal looked at Carlos. My baby? That didn’t sound too bad, now, did it?
“My baby needs a bath!”
“She knows you’re dirty from out there?” Evie asked, confused.
Carlos turned red again. “She doesn’t mean me,” he whispered hoarsely. “She means her car. She’s telling me to give it a wash.”
Evie turned away from the window with a horrified look on her face. “But it’s so filthy! It’ll take hours!” The red car was splattered with dirt from driving around town, crusted black and disgusting.
“No way are we cleaning that,” muttered Jay, who couldn’t be looking forward to washing one more thing.
The four of them crept out of the laundry area and into the main room.
Cruella stopped short at the sight of three strange scraggly teenagers in her house. She still wore her hair in a frizzy black-and-white do. Her long, fur coat trailed on the floor behind her, and she was sucking on a slender black cigarette holder.
Mal gave her a disapproving glance, and Cruella shrugged. “It’s vapor. Just vapor, darling.”
Mal waved the vapor away.
“Now, enough about my baby, how is my one true love?” Cruella drawled, puffing on her long vapor wand.
The three teenagers turned to Carlos questioningly, but even he looked astounded to hear himself described in such affectionate terms. “Your one true love?” he almost stammered.
“Why, yes, my one true love. My furs!” Cruella laughed. “You’ve been taking good care of them haven’t you, darling?”
“Of course,” Carlos said, reddening again.
Mal knew he was kicking himself. But what did it matter if his mother loved him or not? They’d been taught that love was for the weak, for the silly, for the good. Love was not for the likes of them. They were villains. The bad guys. The only thing they loved was a wicked plan.
“Who are these clowns?” Cruella demanded, waving her arms toward the group.
“They’re my…” Carlos stammered.
Mal knew he couldn’t say friends, because they weren’t friends, not really. She had bullied him into going with her on a quest, Evie pitied him, and Jay was there only so he could attempt to steal the chandelier.
Either Cruella didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Where’re Jace and Harry?” she asked.
Carlos shrugged.
“Hi, Mrs. De Vil, I’m—” Evie said, offering her hand.
“I know who you are,” Cruella said dismissively.
Mal thought it was interesting that everyone knew who Evie was, even though she’d been kept in a castle for a decade.
“Hey,” said Mal.
“Oh, hello, Mal—tell your mother I send my love, darling,” Cruella said, gesturing with her vapor cigarette and then turning to glare at Jay. “And you, tell your father he ripped me off with that lamp he sold me—the thing doesn’t work.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jay saluted.
“Well, what are you all standing here for? Didn’t you hear me? My baby’s dirty, darlings! It’s absolutely wretched! I can’t live another minute until you give my baby a bath! Now, scram!”
Evie thought they would be stuck at Cruella’s forever, but at long last the car was clean, and the foursome arrived at Dragon Hall in search of a map that would hopefully show them where the Forbidden Fortress was hidden on the island. Carlos’s compass would help, but if Jafar was right about the island being much bigger than they thought, they would need to be pointed in the right direction first.
Evie still wasn’t sure why she had agreed to go with the group. She knew Mal was being false, but part of her was interested in the adventure. After being cooped up in a castle for ten years, she was curious to see the rest of the island.
The school was dead as a ghost town that Saturday afternoon; only a goblin crew had arrived to clean the halls and mow the grass around the tombstones. The four villain kids walked in and descended into the gloom of campus. The hallways were lined with overgrown ivy that seemed to be multiplying by the second, snaking around old portraits of evil villains nobody could name anymore. Evie could’ve sworn their eyes followed her as she trotted past.
They found Dr. Facilier at his desk, staring into an empty crystal ball.
“Ahh, if it isn’t my least-favorite student,” he said when he saw Mal.
“Relax, Dr. F, I’m not here to fill your top hat with crickets again.”
“What a relief,” he said coldly. “How can I help you?”
“We need to get into the forbidden library,” Mal said. “The Athenaeum of Secrets.”
“Ah, but there’s a reason it’s called the forbidden library—because students are expressly forbidden to enter,” he said sternly.
Evie thought Mal would give up, but instead Mal hopped up on Dr. Facilier’s desk, cool as Lucifer. “Yeah, about that,” she said, plopping down a pack of tarot cards. “Entrance fee?”
Dr. F picked a few up and held them under the dim reading light beside him. “The Major Arcana. Impressive.” He pocketed the tarot set and studied the four students in front of him. “What exactly are you looking for in the library?”
“A map of the island,” said Mal. “And make it quick, will you? I haven’t got all day.”
The giant spider guarding the door moved away as docile as a cat when Dr. Facilier tickled its belly. The door to the Library of Forbidden Secrets opened with a rusty squeak, and Dr. F escorted the four of them through.
Tall, teetering bookshelves housed tattered, waterlogged leather-bound books, covered with twenty years’ worth of dust, as well as beakers and vials filled with strange-looking liquids and potions. As Dr. Facilier scurried down the dingy corridors before them, moving through the rows of bookshelves and muttering under his breath, they were only able to make out the faint outline of his glowing candle, casting shadows against the library walls.
“You know he’s got bat poop for brains, right? This could all be for nothing,” Jay whispered.
Mal shot him a look.
“Just saying,” said Jay.
“It’s worth a try,” Evie said from behind them, stopping briefly to untangle herself from a cobweb. “Otherwise, we’ll just be wandering around in the dark, like we are now.”
“Yeah, it couldn’t hurt,” agreed Carlos. He was holding his machine protectively under his jacket.
/> “Aha! Here we are,” Dr. Facilier announced, stopping in front of a row of cases. He pulled out a yellowing rolled-up piece of parchment from one of the dusty shelves. He smoothed out the paper and placed it on a lopsided worktable while the four of them gathered around.
“Um, there’s nothing there,” Evie pointed out, her voice small. It was true, the map was blank.
“Well, it was written in invisible ink, of course,” Dr. Facilier said as if everybody knew this. “How’s a secret supposed to stay a secret, otherwise?”
Without warning, and to the shock of everyone around, Mal grabbed him by the collar and pushed him up against one of the bookcases, which caused several of the vials to fall and shatter to the floor. “Why, you little rat, have you forgotten who my mother is and how she can have you and everyone on this filthy island…”
“Mal!” Evie said in a shocked tone. “Stop it!” She put a hand on Dr. Facilier’s trembling arm. “Let me handle this.”
Mal turned to her. “Let you what?”
“Handle this. Easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar,” she said. “Go on, let go, gently, gently.”
Mal slowly let go of Dr. Facilier, whose knees would have given out if Evie hadn’t caught him. “Now, Dr. F, there has to be a way to make the ink visible, doesn’t there?”
Dr. Facilier mopped his sweaty brow with a raggedy silk handkerchief. “Yes, there is.”
“Good,” said Evie. “Now, tell us how.”
The headmaster pointed shakily to the vials that had shattered on the ground. “The antidote was kept there. But now it’s gone.”
Evie glanced at Mal, who looked stricken. Mal put her head in her hands and groaned.
“Uh, Mal?” Carlos asked softly, tapping her shoulder.
“Go away, Spotty,” she snapped.
“Listen. I know how to make the elixir. To see the ink.”
They all turned to him, including Dr. Facilier. “You can do magic?” Mal asked. “But how?”
“No, no, it’s not magic, it’s just a little chemistry—you know, Weird Science,” Carlos said. “Come on. Evie, bring the map.”
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