“You all right?” asked Jay, who was nervously blowing on his hands to warm them.
She nodded. “It’s…” she faltered, unable to find the words to describe what she was feeling. She had listened to all her mother’s stories, but she didn’t think they were real.
Not until now.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.” He shrugged, and she realized he’d probably felt the same way when they were in the Cave of Wonders. Mal knew Jafar and Iago talked about it all the time, but it was hard to imagine, hard to picture a world beyond what they knew of the Isle.
It had been, anyway.
Now everything was different.
Jay sighed. “It’s all real, isn’t it?”
“I guess so,” Mal nodded. “Every last page of every last story.” Even the curse, she thought, for the first time in hours.
The curse.
Someone has to touch it.
Evie has to touch it, and sleep for a thousand years.
“So, where is it?” Carlos asked, looking around the cold stone room.
“It has to be here somewhere,” said Evie, turning to look behind her.
“Maybe we should split up,” Jay said, a glint in his eye.
“Think,” Mal said. “My mother was never without it. She held it even as she sat upon her throne.” Mal moved back to the spot where the throne no longer stood. “Here.”
“So where would it be now?” Carlos frowned.
“It wouldn’t be where anyone else could touch it,” Evie said. “Try asking my mother if she’ll let you touch any of her own Miss Fairest Everything memorabilia.”
Mal flinched at the word touch.
The curse was waiting for all of them—or at least, one of them—just as the Dragon’s Eye was.
“But she’d want to see it, of course. From her throne,” Jay said. Mal nodded; they’d all seen Jafar orient himself in his kitchen, directly behind his stack of coins.
“Which would be—” Mal spun slowly around. She could picture her mother sitting here, clutching the staff, feeling powerful and evil and well, like herself as she reigned over the kingdom.
She shook her head.
My mother would have no problem cursing any of the people in this room for ten thousand years, let alone one.
“There. Look!” cried Evie, spotting a tall black staff with a dim green globe at its top against the far wall.
It was, just as they had predicted, exactly in Mal’s line of vision from the missing throne, but raised by some sort of magical light a good twelve feet into the air. Far out of the hands of any interlopers—and yes, where it could not be touched.
Of course.
There it was.
It’s really here. The most powerful weapon of all Darkness.
Evil lives! indeed.
“It’s right here!” Evie was closest to it and reached for it eagerly.
She shot her hand up into the air, extending her fingers. The moment she did, the Dragon’s Eye began to shake, as if something about Mal herself was prying it loose from the very light and air that bound it.
Evie smiled. “I’ve got it—”
Mal saw Evie’s hand curl toward it, almost in slow motion. The scepter itself seemed to glow, as if it were beckoning Evie toward it.
Everything around Mal seemed to blur until she could only see Evie’s small, delicate fingers and the bewitched Dragon’s Eye, just beyond her grasp.
In a split second Mal had to make the decision: could she let Evie touch it and be cursed into a deep, death-like sleep for a thousand years?
Or would she save her?
Stop her?
Do something…good?
While betraying her own mother’s wishes, and giving up on her own dream of becoming something more than a disappointment?
Was she content to remain only a Mal her entire life?
Never a Maleficent?
She froze, unable to decide.
“No!” cried Mal finally, running toward Evie. “Don’t!”
What just happened? What was she doing? Why couldn’t she stop herself?
“What?” asked Evie, shocked, just as a familiar voice boomed from the Dragon’s Eye.
“WHOEVER AWAKENS THE DRAGON WILL BE CURSED TO SLEEP FOR A THOUSAND YEARS!”
Maleficent’s voice was coming from the staff even now, echoing and reverberating around the room.
Her mother really had left an impression behind her. What remained of her power and her energy crackled off the walls of the room, sparked to life by one accidental moment and latent until now, when it had victims to torture.
Evie’s fingers brushed the air next to the staff.
While Mal’s hand closed upon it, and when it did…
She fell to the floor, asleep.
Mal blinked her eyes. She could see herself lying on the floor of the throne room, purple hair spilling out like a stain beneath her head.
Her three companions huddled nervously around her.
So I’m sleeping, then? Or am I awake? Or maybe I’m dreaming?
Because Mal knew she was seeing something else as well.
She wasn’t in the Forbidden Fortress anymore.
She was in a palace, and there was good King Stefan and his queen and a baby in a cradle.
They were happy. She could see by the light in their faces, and by the way their eyes never left the child.