“I can’t want this more than you do, Evie.” Her mother sighed, shaking her head.
“I know,” Evie said, because it was true. “But what am I supposed to do? What if I don’t know what I want? Or how to get it?”
“So you try harder. You reapply. You add that extra layer of gloss over your matte lip stain. You use your blush and your bronzer, and make sure you don’t confuse the two.”
“Bronzer on the bone, blush on the cheek,” Evie said, automatically.
“You know which mascara makes your eyes pop.”
“Blue for brown. Green for gold. Purple for blue,” Evie recited, as if these were her family’s version of math facts.
“Exactly.” Evil Queen clasped her fingers around her daughter’s in a touching, if rare, maternal gesture. “And please, my darling girl. Never forget who you really are.”
“Who am I?” Evie said, squeezing her mother’s hand. She felt so lost—more than anything, it was all she wanted to know.
“Someone who needs to use elixir on her hair, or it looks too frizzy.” With those parting words, Evil Queen left the room, gathering up her dark skirts behind her. “Mirror! Magic Mirror!”
Yeah, Evie thought, she could stay here, reading her old books and watching Auradon News Network, just like before. Later, if she was really lucky, her mother would come into her room to give her yet another interesting hairstyle, even though Evie had told her millions of times she preferred the V-braid.
This is my life, when I’m in the castle.
Braiding and blushing and bronzing.
That was the thing about leaving home, she guessed. Once you’d made your way out into the world, once you’d left the darkness of the cave, it was hard to go back.
Even to make your hair smooth and your eyes pop.
The more Evie thought about it, the more she knew she couldn’t stay in the castle one more second. She’d read all the books and watched all the shows and there was no one to talk to other than her mother, who was only obsessed with the latest cosmetics that arrived on the Dumpster barges, the used tubes of lipstick and opened jars of cream that the Auradon princesses tossed when they didn’t want them anymore.
Even school has to be better than this.
Besides, she could deal with Mal, couldn’t she? She wasn’t scared of her.
Not that scared of her.
Okay, so maybe she was. But Evie was more terrified of rotting in a cave forever. And she was far too young to start working on her own Magic Mirror voice. She shook her head at the thought.
Pretty is as pretty is?
Was that what my mother said?
But what was the point of being pretty if there was no one there to see how pretty you were?
Even the crack on her ceiling was starting to look like the Dragon’s Eye.
Mal stared up at it from her bed, transfixed. She had woken up extra early—even earlier than Carlos and Evie—as she couldn’t sleep, thinking of the quest her mother had all but immediately dispatched her on. Maleficent was like that: once she had an idea in her head, there was no stopping her. It didn’t matter if it was her daughter or one of her minions—she expected everyone to stop and drop and risk everything to do her bidding.
That was the Maleficent way.
Mal knew there was no exception made for daughters, not when you were one of the all-time most villainous villains of the Isle of the Lost. You didn’t get to be number one by being merciful, or even reasonable.
Not when you were one of the evil elite.
Maleficent wanted the Dragon’s Eye back, which was great, and all, and Mal totally got it; but actually trying to find out where it was on the island—now that was something else entirely.
So, yeah.
It wasn’t as if Diablo were any help. All the raven did was caw when Mal poked it. “Where is it, huh, D? If you’re back to life, then it can’t be far, right? But where?” He’d poke her eyes out if she got close enough to let him. That stupid bird had always wanted her mother all to himself; and to him, Mal wasn’t even a threat as much as a nuisance.
Still, it was more than just a bird that was haunting her now.
Maleficent’s threats were hard to shake. As always, her mother knew exactly where to strike. She could find her daughter’s soft spots as easily now as when she had been a baby wearing one on the top of her own head.
Don’t you want to prove yourself to me?
Prove that you are worthy of the name I bestowed on you, Maleficent!