“Hey, man! What’ve you got there? Breakfast? Don’t mind if we do.” The burly brothers high-fived him as they stole his cold porridge from under his nose on their way out the door. Being the Gastons, they were the last to leave and the first to steal all the food, as usual.
“I guess I wasn’t hungry anyway,” Carlos said out loud, although only he was listening. “We should get busy and clean this place up before my mom gets home.”
He sighed and picked up the broom.
There was way too much to clean. But he was Carlos De Vil, boy genius, wasn’t he? Surely he could figure out a way to make this task easier? Yes, he would. He just had to put his mind to it. He would take care of the cleanup later. First, he had to go to school.
Back at her own castle, Evie hadn’t been able to sleep any better than Carlos had. Perhaps her dreams weren’t plagued by Cruella De Vil or the cracking dome, but they were tormented by endless mazes of dark rooms and snapping traps—and she had woken up in a full sweat just as one was about to clamp down on her leg with its steel jaws again.
I can’t go back to school, she thought. Not after last night.
The thought of having to face Mal again made her stomach queasy.
Besides, what was wrong with staying home? Home was, well, home. Wasn’t it? So maybe it wasn’t nice here, but it was safe. Relatively. Cozy. In a not-exactly-traditionally-cozy way.
Or not.
Okay, so it was cold and musty and basically a cave. Or a prison, as she had come to think of it during her years of castle-schooling. And today, like most days of her life, Evie could hear her mother talking to herself in her imaginary Magic Mirror voice again.
But at least at home there were no traps and no purple-haired wicked fairies angling for revenge. There were no confusing frenemies, if she and Mal were even that.
I don’t know what we are, but I know I don’t like it.
And here I thought once I got to a real school my life was going to be so much better.
Evie got up and went to her desk, which had a few of her old textbooks from her years of castle-schooling. She picked up her favorite, a worn leather grimoire, the Evil Queen’s personal spell book.
Of course, it was useless on the Isle, but Evie still liked reading all the spells. It was like a catalog of her mother’s finer days, of a time before she spent hour after useless hour rattling around the empty rooms of the castle doing the Voice. It made Evie feel better, sometimes. To remember that things hadn’t always been like this.
She paged through the spell book’s worn yellow pages like she had when she was a little girl. She had pored over them the way she imagined the princesses in Auradon pored over their stupid fairy tales. She studied them the way other princesses studied, well, other princesses.
There were truth spells involving candles and water, love spells that called for flower petals and blood, health spells and wealth spells, spells for luck and spells for doom. Trickster spells were her favorite, especially the Peddler’s Disguise, which her mother had used to fool that silly Snow White. That was a good one.
A classic, even.
“Hi, sweetie,” Evil Queen said, entering her bedroom. “You’re looking pale again! Let me blush!” She removed a big round brush and began to work on Evie’s cheeks. “Pink as an appleblossom. There. Much better.” She looked down at the book in her daughter’s hand. “Oh, that old thing? I never understand. Why would you want to get that out again?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I just can’t picture it. I mean, did you really do this spell? You?” Evie somehow couldn’t imagine her mother as a frightening old hag. Sure, she was plump and middle-aged and no longer resembled the formidable portrait of her that hung in the main gallery, but she was far from ugly.
“Oh, yes! It was a scream! Snow Why-So-Stupid? was completely fooled! What a dope.” Evil Queen giggled. “I mean, hello? Door-to-door apple sales hag? In the middle of the forest?” She sighed. “Ah. Good times.”
Evie shook her head. “Still.”
Her mother fussed with her hair. “Wait. Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I don’t feel like going,” Evie confessed. “I’m not sure it’s right, after all. Going to a big school. Maybe I should just stay in the castle.”
Evil Queen shrugged. “Who needs an education anyway? Pretty is as pretty is—remember that, darling.”
“Don’t worry. You don’t let me forget.”
“It’s attention to the little things. You have to work for it, and you have to want it. Your eyelashes aren’t going to curl themselves, you know.”
“Nope. You’re going to curl them for me, even if I don’t want you to.”
“That’s right. And why? So that one day you can have what’s rightfully yours, even if you are stuck on this miserable island. It is your birthright, to be the Fairest. Of. Them. All. Those aren’t simply words.”
“I’m pretty sure they are, actually.”
“It’s a responsibility. Ours. Yours, and mine. With great beauty comes great power.”
Evie just stared. When her mother got like this, it was hard to talk her down.