“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.”
They left Dr. Facilier back in his office giving himself a tarot reading, and followed Carlos to the Chem Lab, where they watched him pull various bottles, beakers, and powders off the shelves.
“You’re sure this isn’t magic?” asked Jay skeptically.
“I’m sure. It’s science. Like what humans have to do.” Carlos mixed a few drops of liquid here, a dash of powder here…but then he frowned. “Wait a minute, I can’t find the binder.”
“The what?”
“Reza—he must have stolen it from the lab last week! He hates me. Ugh.” Carlos’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry, Mal. I don’t think I can do it, after all. Not without the thing that puts it all together and sparks the chemical reaction.”
“Reza stole a vial from the lab?” Jay asked.
“He must have,” said Carlos. “It’s not here.”
“This vial, perhaps?” Jay grinned, holding up a small stoppered test tube filled with sparkly liquid that he had shown Mal earlier.
“Where’d you get that?!”
“From Reza’s backpack. Takes one to know one,” said Jay.
Carlos poured a few droplets into his beaker and mixed it all together. A puff a smoke blew out. “Voilà,” he said. “Antidote to invisible ink.” He poured the mixture over the map.
And just like magic, the Isle of the Lost began to form before their eyes, including the hidden and forbidden zones. The Forbidden Fortress appeared, a menacing-looking castle of spiky walls and twisty towers, located on the edge of the island. Right in the middle of Nowhere.
Mal thought Jay’s having the secret vial on hand was a pretty decent stroke of luck, which made her think that maybe they were on to something here. Maybe it was her destiny to find Maleficent’s Dragon’s Eye. “Do you have the compass?” she asked Carlos.
Carlos nodded. The box beeped, as if to agree.
According to the map they would have to walk way past the village right to the edge of the shore, and from there the path would take them to the fortress.
They set off, Carlos in front with Jay, Evie just behind, and Mal holding up the rear. She watched them walk in front of her. She knew Jay would steal the Dragon’s Eye for himself at the first opportunity, that Evie was trying to get on her good side and curry favor, and that Carlos had only joined them to fulfill his curiosity.
But it didn’t matter. Somehow, they all had a common goal. To find the Dragon’s Eye. Better yet, she wasn’t going into Nowhere alone.
Mal had her gang of thieves.
Her very own minions.
And that was progress indeed.
Her evil scheme—the big nasty one—was working.
The path away from the village and toward the shore was smooth at first, but soon became rocky. Mal began to flag. Her feet hurt in her boots, but she soldiered on grimly, now leading the way and following the directions on the map. Behind her she could hear Evie’s light steps, Jay’s stomping ones, and Carlos’s tentative ones.
“Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to work we go,” Carlos sang under his breath.
Evie shuddered. “Don’t.”
“What do you have against dwar—Oh, right,” he said. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“So that was your mom, huh?” said Evie.
“Yup, the one and only Cruella De Vil,” Carlos said, bypassing some poison ivy and pointing it out to the rest of the group to avoid. “One-way ticket to crazy town, right?”
“She’s not so bad,” said Evie, who ducked below a low-hanging branch of a creepy oak tree. “At least she doesn’t do this thing that my mom does, where she pretends to be a Magic Mirror telling me I’m far from the fairest of the land.”
Carlos stopped in his tracks, and he and Jay looked at her, shocked. Even Mal turned around to stare at her.
“Really? But you’re gorgeous,” Jay said. “I mean, you’re not my type, sweetheart, but you’ve got to know you’re good-looking.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked.
“Nah, you’re mom’s right—you’re ugly,” Jay teased.