“Great. Oh, and I wanted to warn you, we’re eating with my dad and Uncle Sneezy tonight. I’ll try and make sure you’re not sitting next to him.”
“Does he always have a cold?” asked Evie wonderingly.
“Allergies,” said Doug.
Mal’s final class of the day was her favorite: Freestyle Painting, where she could do whatever she wanted. She was looking forward to working on her self-portrait, which covered an entire wall in the studio. When Mal turned the corner, she was surprised to find the classroom not only empty of other students and the usual mess of paints and canvases, but also sparkling clean and overwhelmed with dozens of flower arrangements.
“Um, what is happening?” she said, just as Ben stepped out from behind a garland.
“Mal,” he said, taking her hand with a look of adoration in his eyes. “Remember I wanted to ask you something?”
“Sort of?” she said, not quite sure what was happening, as her heart began to pound painfully in her chest. But as she glanced around the room, she got a better look at the flowers. It was sweet of him to have remembered that her favorites were black dahlias and bat orchids. The room was bursting with their sweet-but-spicy scents.
“Mal, will you be my lady at Cotillion?” he asked.
She looked at Ben. “Um, okay?” she said. Ben looked so sweet and sincere kneeling before her, and of course she would do whatever he needed her to do.
“Great!” he said, folding her into his arms.
Mal smiled, looking deep into his eyes, just as hundreds of balloons fell from the ceiling and the paparazzi came out of their hiding places, dozens of cameras flashing.
“Ben, I’m so sorry, I tried to keep it a secret, but they followed you guys in here,” said Jane, wringing her hands.
“It’s all right,” said Ben. “I’m sorry they’re here. I wanted this just to be our moment,” he added to Mal.
“It’s okay. You’re the king. Everyone wants to know what’s going on with your life,” Mal said, glad that she had changed out of her torn jeans and leather jacket and worn a cute dress that Evie had loaned her as part of the beginning of her makeover.
“Oh!” she said, shielding her eyes from the glare of the flashes. She tried to pose prettily.
“Hooray!” said Evie, rushing out to give Mal a hug, followed by Jay and Carlos, who were holding even more flowers. Jane appeared to have begun berating one of the journalists in attendance.
Mal smiled at all of them, feeling as if she had just won something that she didn’t quite ask for. Ben pulled her into a hug and she whispered in his ear, “By the way, what’s Cotillion?”
“It’s a dance,” said Ben, waving to the cameras with kingly grace. “You get introduced to the kingdom and officially become Lady Mal.”
Ben looked completely happy, but now it was Mal’s turn to be nervous. Lady Mal? That sounded…fancy and serious. She’d never had a title before. Unless you counted Mal the Worst, which is what she’d been called back on the Isle of the Lost. There were so many ways to be wicked; she could dream up so many if she tried….
“Oh,” she said again. “When is it?”
“Soon, but there are all these events leading up to it first, sort of wrapped up with the Celebration of Auradon. We’re going to tour the kingdom, make sure you meet all our subjects,” said Ben.
Mal gritted her teeth in determination. She could do it. She would be perfect from this day forward, all the way up to Cotillion. She would play the part of royal girlfriend to the hilt. “Ben, can I ask you something?” she said.
“Sure. Anything,” he said, kissing her hand.
“Can I move my mom out of the library and into my room? I don’t think she’s a threat to the kingdom as a lizard.”
Ben thought about it and smiled. “Yeah, I think that can be arranged.”
“Thanks, Ben.”
Mal took a deep breath. Cotillion was not too far away, plus she had all those Celebration of Auradon events to accompany Ben to. Agrabah’s festival was next on the calendar, so a royal visit to Aladdin and Jasmine was in the works. She was going to do her best, she promised herself, thinking of the spell book temporarily hidden back in her dorm room.
She just had to make a few changes here and there….
Uma, Harry, and Gil stood on the deck of the shipwrecked Lost Revenge. Their clothes were almost dry from the storm, and they were no worse for wear. But the ship was another story altogether. The mainmast was broken, there were holes in the hull, and it was clear she would never sail again. She would be a permanent addition to the dock from now on. The three of them leaned over the railing on the topmost deck, watching the colorful, messy lives of pirates and villains unfold in the rickety wooden tenements right across from the bridge.
Uma stared moodily at the lively scene in front of her without seeing anything. She still couldn’t understand what had happened out there on the Isle of the Doomed. She definitely swam down to the ocean floor and grabbed the trident—that was a memory, not a dream, she was sure. But how was it that she had ended up back on the rowboat without the trident, using her mother’s necklace to call it up? And why had she lost to Mal, of all people? Mal, who wasn’t even a proper villain anymore, but an Auradon turncoat. Mal, who wasn’t worthy of her mother’s name, let alone her legacy. Mal, who had gone soft and was dating the king of Auradon—gross. Mal, who’d beaten her once again.
It was way too painful to dwell upon, so Uma decided she’d been robbed, not beaten. That trident had been rightfully hers, but Mal had done something, used some horrible Auradon magic, and cheated Uma out of her victory.
“So what now?” asked Gil.
“Rough up goblins?” suggested Harry.
“Ooh, or taunt first-years and make them walk the plank!” said Gil.
“Uma?” asked Harry. “Captain’s choice?”
She shook herself out of her reverie. She still had Mal’s glove in her pocket, but she planned on burning it in the kitchen fire soon enough. “I’ve got a better idea,” said Uma.
She led them out across the bridge and into the bazaar. The stalls were full of hawkers, and she and her pirates had a fun time swiping scarves, taking things that weren’t theirs, and causing the usual chaos and mayhem.
“Look,” she said, stopping in front of a puke-inducing poster of King Ben and Mal. “Spray paint,” she ordered, holding out a palm, and Harry slapped a canister in her hand.
“Let’s give him a nice little mustache and horns, shall we?” she said, drawing them over Ben’s head and face.
The pirates snickered. “There’s more over there,” said Gil.
The crew vandalized every poster of King Ben that they could find, especially ones that depicted him and that Isle traitor Mal. It was a petty victory, but it did make Uma feel better, especially when she scrawled the pirates’ motto all over their faces: WE RIDE WITH THE TIDE.