Prologue

Jafar's grin held that of a wolf, his dark heart warming at the sight of the bundle in his arms. It had taken years to find a master stupid enough to wish him free from his gilded prison, but now freedom was finally upon him. The baby practically screamed bloody murder as it was being held captive. The baby's distress kept Jafar going as the wind briskly pricked his face, even more so as he ran. The dirt of Agrabah's lower streets crunched as he made his getaway, the shouts of the guards being heard not too far behind him.

The former vizier ducked into one of the hidden alleyways of the street, his flowing black robes creating a small cyclone of dirt in its wake. Jafar ducked into a hole in the wall and could hear the muffled sounds of the royal guard running right past the crumbling building. 'Fools', he thought to himself. The Royal Guard of Agrabah was never the smartest bunch. He'd learnt that the hard way when his status had still been intact.

By this time, the baby had been silenced with a sleeping spell. If what Jafar had heard was true, then he knew that he had little time to put his plan into action before he was banished to the infamous Isle of the Lost, where any powers that the evil possessed were to be obliterated, and where all of his other fellow villains had been banished to. The former vizier had kept himself hidden this long, four years after every villain was banished to the Isle of the Lost, but that didn't mean that he would stay hidden forever. Jafar didn't know about the rest of them, but he was going to ensure that his powers remained intact.

The baby wiggled and squirmed in his arms as it tried to get comfortable. Jafar grinned down wolfishly at it. "You're going to be a very important piece in my plan, one day. One day little one, you will be my slave, and I shall have my revenge on your parents. Aladdin and Jasmine will rue the day that they defied me", Jafar cooed to the babe. He raised his hand over the baby, closed his eyes, and began to chant:

Isis great mistress I call upon you

I transfer my power to this life anew

This newborn babe I hold in my arm

In whom the power will stay, but cause no harm.

No harm would come to this child, not if the spell were to ever work. Jafar refused to live in a world where magic didn't exist. This spell would ensure that he would have his magic when he was banished. Or so he thought.

The Royal Palace of Agrabah at that time would've been comparable to a black market bazaar that had been caught by the authorities. Everyone was running somewhere frantically, warning bells being rung, panicking over the kidnapping of the baby princess Amara, not hours ago.

"Find her! I don't care what it takes. Find my daughter, now!", Jasmine shouted at the guards. She paced frantically back and forth in her bedroom as fear and anxiety settled into her heart. She struggled to keep the tears from rolling down her face. She had to remain strong for her people. Her pacing was interrupted as her bedroom door was opened, only to reveal the face of her husband, Aladdin.

His dark russet eyes were alert and focused, and at the same time ridden with exhaustion and fatigue, seeing as they had woken from their deep sleep to find their daughter stolen right from under their nose. Once the couple's eyes locked, Aladdin opened his arms to his wife, and she ran into them without hesitation.

Jasmine's breaths were choppy; they were too choked up with tears to be anything but. She did not merely weep into Aladdin's chest, she sobbed. Their baby, Aziz, was crying too, picking up on his mother's grief for his twin sister. Once her crying spell was over, Aladdin pulled back slightly and slid his hands up to Jasmine's neck. He tilted her face up to meet his and stroked her cheeks tenderly with his thumbs. Their forehead rested against each other as Jasmine struggled to calm her erratic breathing.

"She's gone", Jasmine whispered shakily. "Amara is gone".

"No", Aladdin affirmed. He pulled back and looked his wife in her tear-streaked eyes.

"Don't speak of her as if she's already dead", he whispered soothingly. "Jafar may have Amara-"

"We don't know what he'll do to her. You know how much Jafar hates us. What if-"

"No, Jasmine. We can't afford to think like that. All we can do is hope that she's alright", Aladdin whispered to his distressed wife. Aladdin took in a deep breath and brought Jasmine's lips to his. Their kiss washed all of their troubles away, if only for a brief moment.

"We will find her. I'm not sure how long it will take, but we will find her", Aladdin assured his wife as he slid his arms back around her. By then, it was too late. Jafar had been transported to the Isle of the Lost, the baby along with him.

"How could I have let her get away?!", Jafar cursed himself, pounding his fists on the decaying desk of his junk shop. He was alone, given that his six-year-old son, Jay, was out on the streets, learning the ways of the pickpocket. The girl had slipped from his grasp just like that, and had stolen his most valuable possession, his spell book. How? Because he had no magic with which to keep her locked up in the attic of the shop, as he had since she was little so that no one would ever know of her existence, not even Jay.

And why did he have no magic? Because he was the idiotic fool that had given it to her in the first place. He thought that by transferring his magic into her, he could control her and make her do his bidding. This is what happened when arrogance got the best of you. This is what he got for home-schooling her and actually teaching her to think for herself.

Jafar kept muttering curses under his breath, because he knew that the minute his powers were transferred back to him while on the Isle, they would be permanently destroyed. As long as they stayed inside someone born of a hero, then they would be preserved. The girl was extremely clever and quick, just like her father. Jafar cursed him as well, just because he could. He pondered what he could do to correct this particular predicament.

He couldn't go to Maleficent with this, that was for sure. If he told her anything of what he had done, Maleficent would steal her away, and if that happened, his magic was as good as gone. Not to mention that he would be destroyed for his secrecy. Even though Maleficent had no magic on the Isle, she had minions to do her dirty work. Not to mention that she'd interfere with his plans.

Jafar ran his fingers up and down his face and groaned in frustration. He couldn't just sit here and wait for an evil scheme to just pop into his head. Wait a minute, of course! That's exactly what he would do: wait. After all he was known for his patience. He had waited many years under that blasted Sultan's rule before he took over. Sure, Jafar's reign was a short one, but it was glorious while it lasted.

Despite who the girl's parents were, there was no way she could've gotten very far, not on her own at least. She was only six years old after all. Jafar smiled as his self-assurance took effect. He spent the rest of the day going on about it as he normally would. The power inside her would sustain her for the most part, so she wouldn't have to eat or drink much, and as long as she didn't die, the power wouldn't return to Jafar and it wouldn't be destroyed. Even more so, Jafar had many years before his plan unfolded. He was sure that he'd think of something.

He had underestimated how clever the girl actually was. He figured that someone would eventually catch her, and since she didn't really talk much, Jafar would smooth everything out, and when that happened, everything would go back to normal.

He was wrong.

Amara ran through the forests of the far side of the Isle, its residents not far behind her. In the leather satchel that she carried were Jafar's spell book and some gold coins, enough that she could maybe buy her way off the island, but that would probably require her to show her face to someone.

She had found the money by Goblin Wharf, where the food supply ships came from Auradon to bring the leftovers included in their diet. The people of the Isle of the Lost were condemned to lives of poverty, so anything that looked shiny or valuable or anything that fell into both of those categories, well, let's just say they went a little crazy. This is what Amara got for coming out during the day.

It wasn't likely that anyone would recognize her. No one on the Isle had ever seen her face and the only other thing that could've been used to identify her was the serpentine birthmark on the back of her neck. No one on the Isle knew that she even existed, Jafar made sure of that. That was pretty much the only thing that benefitted from her stay at the junk shop. That and she always covered her face with a black cloth. That was basically her whole wardrobe: Black. Black shoes, black pants, black hooded jacket, and a bunch of black shirts that she had stolen from the local villain's clothing store. She found that black was a very useful color in the world of thieves and wanted fugitives.

The only difference between her and the rest of the island thieves was that she stole out of survival, they did it just because. She ran faster and deeper into the woods that had been her home for the past four years, ever since she had escaped from Jafar's stupid shop when she was only six years old. She could hardly believe it herself sometimes.

The shouting that she had heard had begun to fade, most likely because they had given up on chasing her, but Amara was too cautious to believe that everyone was gone. She had to survive, didn't she? She heard the distinct pitter-patter of footsteps against the forest floor, which only made Amara quicken her pace.

Even though she wore a deep black hood and a face cloth, she didn't dare look back. She was focused only on losing the person who still persisted after her. Eventually, she took a side route and found a nice thick oak tree, whose branches snaked out like vines, perfect for climbing, plus it was covered in foliage. It was decaying foliage, but it was foliage nonetheless. To Amara, it was enough to conceal her thin, wiry frame. That was the thing about being small, easier to hide.

She took a running start towards the tree, catapulting herself off one edge and grabbing onto one of the lower branches, lifting herself onto it. Over her years of residence in the woods, tree climbing was something of a second nature to her. She climbed up the tree as fast as she could (which, by the way, was pretty fast for a ten year old), until she reached the top, which wasn't as covered as she would've liked it to be, but it would do.

She clamped her mouth shut, breathing only through her nose should it divulge her location. She stayed still and waited, listening in the forest for the pitter-patter, and not long after, she did. She went completely still and looked down, her pursuer finally coming into her view. The pitter-patter became closer and closer, louder and louder until finally, it stopped.

Amara had to blink twice to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. She leaned down to get a better look. From below her treetop lurked her pursuer. He was just a boy, a boy her age for that matter. She had looked through enough cracks and holes in her attack to recognize the boy. He was Jay, the son of her former captor. He hadn't really changed much. He still had the same shaggy dark hair that ran to the crook of his neck, same complexion as her caramel skin tone, and the same rich, dark eyes. Amara leaned down to get a better look.

Amara could suddenly feel herself slipping from her branch, and before she could grab ahold of it, she was freefalling all the way down. She only had time to gasp before she felt herself being caught in mid-air. The next thing she knew, she was staring at the son of Jafar, his arms supporting her bridal style. The force of the fall had caused her hood and her face cloth to fall off, leaving her face completely exposed.

Amara's heartbeat began to accelerate as she realized that she was in fact exposed. In a fit of instinct to survive, she shoved her hands against his chest and scrambled out of the boy's arms. She rolled onto the ground and sprung back up. She didn't bother to put her hood back on. Jay knew what she looked like now, Jay had seen her face. All she could do was stand there and wait for the young snake to make his next move.

Jay was a very persistent boy. If he wanted something, he took it; he had learnt that from his father. What he wanted now was the masked thief's loot, and who knew? Maybe Jay would find out who it was. Who was the thief that gave him a run for his money, that stole things under the cover of night, that could slip in and out unnoticed faster than you could say 'Huh?'.

Jay followed the thief into the woods, wanting his shiny gold coins. Maybe that was the Big Score that his father always talked about, the treasure that would one day get them off of the island. With that in mind, Jay persisted. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him and that was barely enough to keep with the thief, and that was saying something. He was quicker than Jay thought. If Jay hadn't been running so hard, he would've stopped and stared in awe.

The thief weaved and snaked through the woods like it was designed just for him. While the thief vaulted over various tree trunks and boulders, Jay would stumble every two minutes, but would that stop the son of Jafar? No. No, it would not. Despite Jay's stumbling, he was right on the masked thief's trail.

The thief then took a side route, slipping into the cracks like an expert. Jay almost would've been jealous. Jay followed the sound of the footsteps until they abruptly stopped. Jay stopped to catch his breath under an old oak tree. The sound of his heartbeat pounded itself into his ears, and his chest heaved up and down as his body tried to suck in enough oxygen.

Once Jay caught his breath, he looked around the forest. He looked to his right, then to his left, then all around, still nothing. There were no twigs snapping, pitter-patter of footsteps, no sounds to indicate where the thief had gone. Then Jay heard the sound of tree bark grinding on something else. 'Of course', Jay thought. ' Nowhere to go but up. How clever'.

Jay lifted his head to see the thief slipping off of the tree and smirked to himself. 'Gotcha', the boy thought, right before he caught the thief in his arms bridal-style. He was prepared to give this guy some quips about how it was only a matter of time before Jay caught him and how he wasn't really Jay's type, but then he saw the thief's face. The dude was a girl. A girl.

Before Jay could form a complete thought, the girl shoved him away, rolling on the ground and ending in a lunge before slowly getting back up. Her dark russet eyes seemed to be focused on him, eyeing him like a hawk, her wavy, midnight black hair so long that it was strewn all across her long, caramel-toned face.

She pulled her face cloth back on and tucked her hair behind her head, her hood going back over her head. Jay wondered why she even bothered, he already knew what she looked like. Then he heard large footsteps, stomping and pounding on the ground like a stampede of elephants. The girl grabbed Jay's arm and yanked him behind the large oak, which was plenty wide to hide both of their small bodies.

Once they were behind the tree, the girl threw her arms around Jay so that his back was to her front. They tightened around him like a vise as the girl covered Jay's mouth tightly, so he could neither move nor speak. Dang, this girl was strong. The children could hear the grumbling and grunts of the resident goblins. They always were greedy creatures.

"Where could they be? Jay should be back with the shiny coins by now", rasped one of them.

Jay raised his eyebrows. Seriously? Did those goblins think that they could steal anything from him? Preposterous. Sure, Jay was only ten years old, but he was one of the best thieves on the island. Goblins, steal from him? Jay was almost offended before he remembered that goblins were none too smart either.

The children waited in silence until the grunts and groans of the goblins became muffled and more distant. Jay, being arrogant as he was, thought it was safe and tried to wriggle from the girl's iron hold. Big mistake. The girl let go of Jay, only for her to push him back up against the tree with such force that it knocked the wind out of him.

Jay was kept against the tree with the girl's forearm, her free hand covering his mouth. 'Seriously?', Jay thought. 'I'm getting my butt handed to me by a girl. What is wrong with me?'.

Only when there was dead silence did the girl release her hold on him. Jay stumbled to the side and fell on his butt. Jay's heart was pounding. He was shocked, dare he say, terrified? Yes, he in fact was terrified. He was scared stiff of this girl whom he had just met not two minutes ago, and was frightened of what she might do if he tried to make a run for it.

The girl's head snaked around, eyes darting every which way in search of an unknown threat. There wasn't one, but Jay wasn't about to tell her that. Once the girl was satisfied, she walked over to Jay and clamped her vise grip around his arm, yanking him up off the ground in the process. "Ow. Hey! What was that for?", Jay asked, his fear of the girl replaced with irritation.

"You're coming with me", the girl affirmed, yanking Jay in one direction.

"Why?", Jay snapped.

The girl sighed and closed her eyes as if she were talking to the most imbecilic person in the entire universe. When she opened them back up, the weight of her daunting gaze instantly caused Jay to clamp his mouth shut.

"Because you're gonna help me get off of the Isle".