“Is it maybe something about being nice to each other?” asked Evie tentatively. “Do unto others what you want done unto yourself? Some kind of Auradon greeting-card nonsense?”
In answer, the cave began to fill with sand again. The Mouth of Wonders was not happy, that much was clear. Sand appeared from everywhere, filling the room, filling the spaces between the stacks of gold coins, rising like water filling a sinking ship. They would soon suffocate if they did not give the Mouth the correct answer.
“It’s the Cave of Wonders, not the Fairy Godmother!” shrieked Carlos. “The Cave doesn’t care about being kind! That’s not the golden rule!”
The cave continued to fill with sand.
“Come on—this way!” Mal tried to climb the stacks of gold coins—thinking she could avoid the sand by getting closer to the ceiling—but they collapsed beneath her each time she attempted to scale them, and she only ended up buried in more treasure. She tried again, and this time Evie gave her a push from behind, so that she was able to grab on to the tall statue of a sphinx.
She mounted the creature’s back and reached to pull Evie up beside her, but the sand was still rising, already engulfing her leg, threating to keep her down.
“I can’t make it!” Evie shouted.
“You have to!” Mal yelled back.
But Evie had disappeared under the flood of sand.
Jay couldn’t believe it when he watched her go under. “Evie—”
“Come on—” Carlos said, feeling beneath the sand for her. “She has to be down here. Help me find her.”
“I can’t find her,” Jay shouted.
Evie popped back up, spluttering, spitting coins out of her mouth. Mal and Carlos and Jay looked relieved.
“Here—” Now Mal offered Carlos a hand to pull him up, but the sand was already at his chest. “C’mon,” she cried, “climb the sphinx!”
“I can’t,” he said.
“What?”
“My leg is caught.”
Evie climbed up on the sphinx and tugged at his arm on one side, and Mal from the other, but no matter what they did, Carlos didn’t budge an inch. He was stuck, and the sand was still rising around him. It came from the walls and from the floor, and now Evie noticed that it was coming from the ceiling too.
Mal tugged again at Carlos’s arm, but instead of pulling him from the sand, she pulled him out of Evie’s grasp. Evie tumbled into the ever-growing mounds of sand, crashing against chalices and crowns.
The sand covered her: first up to her knees, then her shoulders…
Carlos reached for her, and they held hands as the sand kept rising.
“At least I have my heels on,” Evie said, trying to sound brave. The sand was up to her neck, and Carlos could barely keep his chin above the surface now.
“JAY! WHERE’S JAY?” yelled Mal, looking around, coughing up sand as she frantically held Carlos by the arm.
“JAY!”
Jay was flailing in the sand; it was in his hair, in his eyes. He was also covered with gold doubloons. Gold. So much gold. He’d never seen so much gold in his life. He had all the gold in the world, it felt like.
He would die buried in gold.…
The golden rule…
What is the golden rule?
Why, he knew the answer to that.
He could almost hear his father whispering the answer in his ear.
Meanwhile, Carlos and Evie had disappeared beneath the sand again, and Mal herself was about to go under.
The sand was nearly at the ceiling. Soon there were would be nowhere to escape to—no way to avoid the sand, and no air in the chamber. They were running out of time and out of room.
But Jay knew the answer.
Jay knew he could save them.
“WHOEVER HAS THE MOST GOLD MAKES THE RULES! THAT’S THE GOLDEN RULE!” Jay cried triumphantly, raising a fist in the air.
There was a great booming chuckle, and the sand slowly started to melt into the drains. Soon Jay and Mal and Evie and Carlos were standing right back in the fortress, out of the dungeons altogether.
The Cave of Wonders had disappeared, but then so had all its treasure.
“Fool’s gold,” said Jay sadly, looking at his empty pockets. “All of it.”
Evie thought her heart would never stop pounding. She could still taste the sand from that cave. So this was what true evil was like—like sand in the mouth and gargoyles on attack. If this was what magic did, she was glad there was a dome.
Also, she had practically lost a heel back in there.
Evie shook her head. This was the second time the Forbidden Fortress had almost gotten the better of them. Did Maleficent know she was sending her own daughter into a trap? And if so, did she care? Probably not: this was the feared and loathed Mistress of Darkness, after all. Evil Queen was a fool to think she could compete with someone like that, and Evie almost felt like a fool for trying to compete with the Mistress of Darkness’s daughter.
Now that she thought about it, Evie almost felt sorry for Mal.
Almost.
Carlos’s machine was beeping again.