Thanks to everyone who has followed and reviewed. You've made 2020 tolerable! lol Hope everyone enjoys!

TW: Rape Mention, TW: murder

A few nights later…

It was rare that Ben ever snuck out, and never during the school year. He understood his guards were there for his protection, and he respected safety protocols. He only ever evaded his bodyguards when he desperately needed a night away from being Crown Prince Ben and just be Ben. That night, however, he was on a mission. With the attack on Mal, he knew it was more important than ever to get ahold of his position and assert that he was the future King, and such attacks would not be tolerated.

Mal and the other Isle teens were there under his express invitation and protection. Troy, Bradly, and all of Auradon would know the penalty for endangering those close to him.

People were willing to hurt someone he cared about, he felt part of him go cold and harden; he was willing to condemn his fellow students to the Isle and made it known. Although Troy and Bradly were his age, that didn't stop them from almost killing Mal. So, to him, that meant it shouldn't stop him from condemning them just like any other would be killer.

Perhaps he was known as the Good Prince Ben, but he would not be known as weak or soft.

The trip to the Isle meant even more to him, he needed to see what he was sentencing two of his peers to.

Although he had never snuck out at school, it wasn't the difficult endeavor he had initially thought it should have been. Even though he wanted to sneak out, he felt it was exceedingly too easy to do so. For all of the new rules by the new Headmaster, he basically just walked out to meet Chad at the rendezvous point and no one seemed to be the wiser.

Security at this school is a joke, I bet someone could steal a limo and just drive off.

The normally posh Cinderellaburg prince was dressed in a simple generic blue polo and dark blue jeans. Even his sneakers were some run of the mill brand he found at Target, rather than his normal high-end footwear.

Ben was also surprised that Chad sported a different hair colour, slick back and deep black which made him look like his father.

"Was I supposed to wear a disguise?" the Crown Prince felt like he missed the memo, it felt counter to all the reassurances by Chad that everyone was discreet and wouldn't snitch on them.

Chad only shrugged, he didn't think it mattered and Ben was dressed just as casually but only with bespoke high-end items. He slightly frowned when he didn't notice a lot of difference between the two of them, but he figured Ben's outfit was of superior cloth as his off the rack attire felt rather coarse compared to his usual clothes.

"I didn't think it would hurt. It'll wash out," he would never do anything permanent to his beautiful and perfectly princely dark blond hair. "Let's go, I hear if we get there too late all the good ones are taken."

Ben frowned as they got into a beige sedan, another curious addition, and took notice of the two large crates stuffed with food in the back seat. He did not care for how Chad spoke of the girls they would be visiting as if they were objects. They may be sex workers, but that didn't mean they should be treated as goods to be bartered for.

"So…how exactly does this work?" Ben tried to keep his tone as dispassionate as he could, hoping Chad would take his questioning as mere curiosity as he buckled in. His fingers then tapped on the side door arm rest, releasing some nervous energy.

"We drive to Belle Harbor and go to dock six, that's the creepy goblin dock where the donations from Auradon ship out from," Chad didn't have any clue Ben had ulterior motives, he focused on driving off campus and using the royalty only exit that wasn't accessible to commoners. Normally the gate was used by Queen Belle or King Adam to have undisturbed access to their son or the school in general, but any royal could come and go as they pleased. "Humans never go there, and the goblins don't bother anyone. From there, we use this magic remote and let ourselves in."

While Chad drove down the winding roads towards the Harbor, he casually reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a dull gold remote that looked like any garage remote found in Auradon. Ben took it from Chad and gave it a once over. Other than its colour, there was nothing remarkable about the device and he wondered how it could be used to get onto the Isle.

"And someone just gave this to you?"

"Yeah, Uncle Ferdie is really cool. He doesn't go to the Isle often, but a lot of his guards do. It's like a perk. No one is going to bother us or tattle," Chad wanted to reassure Ben that going to the Isle was totally safe, and even if anyone recognized them then it wouldn't be a big deal. "The goblins oversee the shipment of donations, but it's run by a Charmington charity. So, we have access to all the remotes. Since all the villains are on the Isle, the guards get bored because they don't have much to do. Uncle Ferdie said it keeps the men happy, and the whores are like super cheap."

"Cheap?" Ben asked, he also tucked away the information that Chad casually confessed that a royal, a married royal at that, had visited the Isle.

"Yeah, they don't even take money; like what are villains going to do with Auradonian currency?" Chad couldn't help but snort at the thought of what an Isle filled with villains would even do with paper money or coins.

"Then how do we pay them?"

"Get this," Chad thought it was all a grand joke. "they take linens and food."

That explained the crates in the back.

While the Cinderellaburg heir thought it was all amusing, Ben wanted to throw up. His friend didn't see taking payment in the form of food was because of desperation, and not because the Isle was filled with simpletons who didn't know the value of money.

They finally reached the harbor and found dock six, Chad wasn't kidding when he said the area was creepy. There were little to no streetlights, and the few goblins they saw working the night shift didn't even deign to look their way. Ben only knew of their existence from the reflection of their eyes whenever their car lights quickly passed over them or when their eyes caught the moonlight.

Chad stopped the car just as they reached the edge of the pier, he took the remote from Ben and pressed down. Before their eyes, a dim shift of gold shot out from under their car and created a path that led to the Isle. The light from the magic wasn't bright enough to draw attention, not that there was anyone around to notice.

"Alright," Chad sang, excited that the remote worked as promised.

The remote was preprogramed to take a certain route, it was a roundabout way to get to the Isle but it ensured that no one looking from the Mainland would be able to easily tell that the prison was being accessed at odd times.

They finally reached the shores of the Isle after several miles of driving over the bay, the same dim gold light opened a portal to get them past the barrier, the enchantment that imprisoned the villains and suppressed their magic.

Although Chad showed no signs of being affected, Ben felt an odd drop in his stomach and for a few seconds was out of sorts. He wondered what had happened and came to the realization that perhaps he was more magical than he realized.

Did that suppress the Beast?

He didn't have long to wonder as Chad parked the car amongst a few others on the sandy shores and they got out. He was surprised to also see a small boat were a mix of Charmington, Cinderellaburg, and royal Auradonian guards in uniform were unboarding.

"They take a boat?" Ben couldn't believe that so many guards visiting the Isle had gone unnoticed for so long, or that no one seemed to care that Auradonian citizens came and went at their leisure to what was supposed to be the most secure prison in the world.

"Yeah, I think so. Only the nobility and royalty drive, everyone else takes the boat," Chad was distracted as he took inventory of what he brought for payment when he opened the trunk. Ben was at least glad to see that his friend stocked up on fresh groceries and quality linens, he imagined most would think canned food or junk was good enough for the Isle.

"And they just come and go? To an Isle prison…filled with dangerous criminals? Powerful magical villains that if they escaped, could cause untold danger to every monarch and their family," Ben still couldn't wrap his head around just how easily it was to get to the Isle and how many people were there for whores. It sounded even dumber saying it out loud. From the little he had seen, it was a security nightmare.

What is the point of a magical barrier when anyone can come and go as they please? Why does the Department of Isle Affairs not do security checks? Are they in on it too?

"Oh don't worry, the guards aren't dumb," Chad thought his friend worried about getting caught if there was a break out. "Uncle Ferdie said it's totally safe because there's another boat of guards that patrol around the Isle around the clock. They all take turns. They have weapons and are ready in case the remotes fall into the wrong hands, which has never happened. The islanders have no idea what the key even looks like. I think they assume it's more magical looking. So, no more worrying! We're here to have fun," he reassured his friend as they got the crates of food and then were on their way.

"Yeah, lets have fun…" Ben didn't have to work hard to fool Chad as the other prince was too lost in his own world as he almost skipped into town along the dirt road from the beach.

Please to whatever god is listening, let him be smart enough to have brought condoms…and actually use them.

He knew Chad was enough of a jerk to think he didn't have to use protection because the girls were of the Isle, it wasn't like they could name him the father of any child he sired.

Ben didn't plan on actually sleeping with a prostitute, so he didn't bring them, and he generally didn't keep any on hand. Chad was normally careful as people from his parents to Coach Jenkins all but threw the prophylactics at him. If Chad didn't care about having a bastard child on the Isle, then hopefully he at least wanted to protect himself against disease. Ben knew the Isle had no health care, Mal and the others had come to Auradon without ever had seen a doctor.

Chad had to be in his happy place as he kept an eager smile on his face the entire time, Ben couldn't help but notice how desperately the Isle needed his help. There seemed to be garbage everywhere, the Auradonian citizens not caring one bit what they left behind. There were children running wild and filthy around them, Ben almost gave his box to them but was only stopped because the children had been frightened away by guards who were used to the beggars. The streets were dark and only lit by torches, when he looked up all he saw was total darkness. He had a hard time breathing, the air was rank with filth and decay mixed with whatever the Isle burned for fuel. He was surprised more guards or Chad didn't complain about the smell or air quality.

They probably don't care as long as they get off with whores.

Chad kept looking periodically at Ben through their trek, the Crown Prince couldn't help but feel his friend was up to something.

"I can't wait to show you your surprise," Chad couldn't help but give a little away. "They all say Fleur de Pomme is the best brothel on the Isle, but Gemma's has something really special."

Ben was too afraid to ask, Chad's suggestive winks, smirks, and giggles just added to his anxiety. They finally made it to Gemma's, like every other building it was a repurposed warehouse, the only indication it was a brothel was the swinging sign with an emblem of a faceted diamond with a scroll inscribed with "Gemma's." The first floor was a wide-open space filled with lounge couches and a bar. The madam of the establishment made good use of the linens her workers brought in, the brick walls covered in adorned sheets in different gem colours. The air was filled with giggles of the girls flirting, some of the guards and other men were continuously led upstairs to what Ben assumed were rooms for more privacy. Some customers didn't care about discretion and groped the women and some even tore at their clothing right in front of everyone. The light was dim as there was only so much small torches could do and electricity was a precious commodity, he wondered if the darkness was on purpose to help hide the identity of the patrons, as no one seemed to recognize him nor Chad.

The Cinderellaburg prince had been right, there were all types of girls that filled the floor. All dressed in jewel toned corsets and garters, their hair curled, teased, and perfumed.

The smell of incense hung in the air, heavy and smoky to combat the pollution outside and the smell of sex and sweat inside.

Ben had no issue seeing in the dark, it appeared that the Isle didn't suppress all of his Beastly nature. While the majority of customers were guards and others in uniform, the Crown Prince recognized some lesser lords and took note of where they were from. It was exactly what he wanted, he needed to get dirt on those who could help him pass the legislation he wanted.

It seemed whores were the perfect distraction as Ben doubted anyone would recognize him even if he danced in the middle of the room and shouted "I'm Crown Prince Ben."

He was rather disgusted to see quite a few politicians and nobles of rank from Auroria. They had spoken adamantly against helping the Isle in any way, but had no problem visiting for prostitutes.

Do these despicable men want to keep the Isle as is so they can keep visiting whores?

Any hesitation or guilt he felt at using blackmail had flown out the window since he felt it was a real possibility.

Chad had mentioned all sorts of high nobility and even royalty visited the Isle, if they did then they weren't at Gemma's and Ben wondered why his friend would choose a less prestigious brothel when he was certain they could afford the best.

Chad spoke to a woman who was not as scantily dressed as the others, he assumed she was some sort of hostess, possibly even the madam. She wore an actual dress, adorned with a ruffled bustle, but still had plenty of cleavage to show off. She eyed what he had brought and looked to Ben to see he held just as much payment. Her smile widened even further and bade them to follow her after they had unloaded their payment to a nearby servant. Both princes obeyed and they were taken to an area that was more private with silk curtains. Ben figured they were in some sort of VIP area.

"Please do sit down and help yourself to some pear brandy or apple wine. It's the best in all the Isle," the woman boasted with a silky voice, smile as wide as a Cheshire. "I will have our very best gems brought to you," she gave a wink and an almost coy grin.

And then she quickly made her exit and both boys relaxed and helped themselves. Ben hoped the alcohol didn't cause blindness as he poured himself a tumbler of the wine. He normally wouldn't partake in questionable drinks, but he felt he needed to take the edge off. The wine wasn't as good as the one Evie had made for the championship party, but it did its job to calm his nerves. He still didn't know why they were specifically at Gemma's, but whatever the reason had Chad bouncing around like a kid at Yuletide.

Chad also helped himself to the provided liquor, grimacing at how strong the pear brandy was but enjoyed it nonetheless and didn't take any heed to pacing himself and poured himself some more.

Ben had never been to a brothel before, he wasn't even sure if Auradon had any. He assumed not as it was illegal, if there were then surely the Mainland citizens wouldn't come all the way to the Isle for whores. He wasn't naïve enough to think there was absolutely no prostitution in Auradon, but he couldn't see why coming to the Isle for whores was worth the risk.

What is so special about whores here?

"Are there no whores in Auradon?" he couldn't help but ask his fellow prince.

Chad's brow frowned in thought,

"I'm not really sure. I assume there is, not everyone can sneak in here."

"Seems like a lot just to have sex."

"Yeah, but it's like whatever kind of sex you want," his laugh and goofy smile made Ben's skin crawl. "It's a bit of a bother, but it's worth it to not have them snitch on you to the papers."

That made sense to Ben in a duplicitous type of way.

The whores might not be able to report their customers, but maybe they will give me some information for the right price. Maybe even priority for Isle-to-Auradon. I'm sure the nobles who visit here would shit their pants if I wanted to prioritize the children and sex workers.

The next laugh that spilled from Ben's lips was genuine, although Chad mistook it for eagerness.

The hostess had returned and with her there were four whores trialing behind her, they all lined up before the two princes and it suddenly became clear exactly why Chad wanted to take him to Gemma's and Ben's smile dropped.

The four whores had similar features to the Isle Four.

Ben was rendered speechless while Chad thanked whatever sexual gods that may be looking down on them.

"Gentlemen, here are our four best and most highly requested gems," Diamond the hostess purred, catering to the richest patrons Gemma's had ever seen.

"Here we have Amethyst," she first introduced the girl with cascading purple hair in romance curls, she wore a matching corset and lace panties. "Then we have Onyx," a boy with pitch black tresses that went to his lower back, he had a copy of Jay's signature leather vest and black silk pants. "Sapphire," a girl with a matching colour bob and mirrored Amethyst but in blue, and finally "Zircon," a boy with half his hair a white blonde and the other midnight black, so dark it shone blue in candlelight, he wore no shirt and only had white silk pants.

The surprise Chad had been so excited about were whores that looked like their classmates. They weren't exact twins, but they shared enough features and with their hair styles they couldn't be mistaken for anyone else if they had known the Isle teenagers.

I am going to kill Chad.

The Charmington prince didn't seem to notice his friend's murderous intentions, he was too excited at the prospect of bedding doppelgängers of classmates that he had been antagonizing since they had gotten to Auradon.

"Now gentlemen, of course our finest come at a premium that you have so graciously provided, but they also come with a warning. They are Gemma's finest kept secret and must remain that way…"

"Yes, yes, yes," Chad was willing to agree to anything at that point. "No mentioning the whores at other establishments. We understand."

Ben was glad Chad knew what was going on, because he was totally lost at why it would matter. Although a few seconds later he put the pieces together and figured that Maleficent would probably raze Gemma's to the ground if she ever found out a likeness of her daughter was being sold as a whore. He couldn't imagine Ravenna, Jafar, or Cruella being all too thrilled either.

I'm definitely going to kill Chad, it'd be a mercy if Mal or Evie ever found out.

Ben did his best to refrain from gritting his teeth in frustration now that he had this secret he would obviously have to keep from the other teenagers. He wasn't about to admit that not only did he visit a whorehouse, but said establishment had workers that looked like them and catered to Auradonian guards. It made him rather ill to think the four were popular and probably in high demand. Most of the guards were well into their twenties and older, and apparently drooling over teenagers, it made him feel gross and he wanted give up on the world.

Maybe I should free the entire Isle, Auradon is not making a case for itself that its worth protecting. Gods, are we the bad guys?

"So Amethyst is for you," Chad obnoxiously winked at Ben and interrupted his existential crisis. The purple haired girl just giggled flirtatiously and went to stand by Ben. "Obviously…and I'll take Sapphire and Onyx."

Whatever conflicted feelings Ben had storming inside him were immediately replaced with surprise, the rise of his eyebrows in surprise could not be hidden.

"When on the Isle…" Chad casually shrugged.

Ben was still surprised to the point of being non-verbal. The Crown Prince had expected Chad to go wild with whores, the other prince had absolutely no parental supervision on the Isle and literally no one to gainsay any of his wishes. He just never thought his friend's taste was even curious about males.

"Look," Chad tried to explain, seeing that Ben was gobstruck. "One day I'll be married and I absolutely intend to abide by my marriage vows…I just don't see the harm in trying everything out before that happens. I don't want to live the rest of my life wondering what it might have been like."

Ben thought that was fair enough but still surprised, he was learning something new about his friend and was still processing it.

"So, we paid for all four…I'm sure Zircon would make for an…interesting addition."

Chad wiggling his eyebrows and overstretched smirks were totally unnecessary.

Ben just rolled his eyes and figured Chad would always be Chad. He was certain any fantasy roleplaying the other prince would have the Evie and Jay look-a-likes do would include self-indulgent worship and both willing to leave the other just to be with him.

What exactly were in those crates?

Chad assumed Ben would indulge in that type of fantasy as well, perhaps have the Carlos whore admit that Ben was the superior choice.

Ben especially hated that the idea was actually tempting, but only for a second because Ben after all was only human.

"I think I'll start with Amethyst for tonight…males seem a bit too advanced for me," he tried to be humble and not insult Zircon, he also hoped that the boy wouldn't get in trouble with the madam for being turned away by the client.

Zircon merely shrugged,

"I'm paid for the night either way. I'll be in my room if either of you change your mind," his voice a low purr.

"Well in that case, you can come with us," Chad immediately jumped on the chance for another addition. Zircon smirked, charmed by the customer's eagerness, and sauntered over to the other prince.

Emboldened by Chad's obvious enthusiasm, Zircon brushed his thumb across the prince's strong jawline and took a kiss.

Ben felt awkward as the two deepened the kiss and he could see peaks of their tongue start to dance with each other. He wondered if the whore was the first male Chad had been with.

All of Ben's royal training did not prepare him for such an uncomfortable situation. He didn't know where to look and wished they would move to private rooms already.

Sapphire didn't want to be left out, so she started to nibble at Chad's jawline and placed delicate kisses along his neck. She would let him dictate who he wanted to give attention to while Onyx started to pull at Chad's shirt to feel the taut muscles underneath.

The whores always preferred it when it wasn't a hardship to bed their customers and Chad was easily one of the most handsome to grace their halls.

Amethyst seemed to think Ben would follow suit and let her hand start to wander, but Ben had put a stop to that. Her eyes widened in shock and she hoped that she hadn't made a mistake, the madam would be furious if she had angered their best paying guest.

"Why don't we take this somewhere private?" Ben tried to ease her worries.

She smiled and slipped back into the seductive siren she was trained to be. She had bedded enough men to know that not all of them were exhibitionists and preferred to keep bedroom games in the bedroom.

"Such a gentleman," she softly cooed and took him by the hand to lead him upstairs to their most luxurious room.

"Brad…Brad," Ben tried to get his friend's attention using the fake name he gave the hostess. They might have been in a curtained off area, but the fabric was thin enough that anyone outside would have been able to hear them.

I know we're in a whorehouse, but jeez Chad, who raised you?

The boy prince was startled out of his pleasurable stupor and grinned stupidly, he agreed he'd rather be somewhere more private and more importantly, somewhere with a big bed. The four rushed towards the stairs and were off, Ben and Amethyst took a more leisurely and dignified pace.

The hostess smiled indulgently, as if she were an amused mother smiling at her children's antics but as soon as they were out of eyesight, her smile disappeared and she rolled her eyes. She hated every last Auradonian that crossed the threshold.

"Stand guard outside both of their rooms," she told the closest henchman to her and he immediately obeyed. She walked to a hidden hallway that wound its way across the warehouse, a secret passageway that avoided being seen by whores and customers alike. It led to a private room furnished with the best Auradon and the Isle had to offer. The walls decorated with silk sheets reminiscent of a grand estate in what was currently known as Cinderellaburg.

"Your ladyship," the hostess greeted respectfully. Although Leota Tremaine had been officially disentitled once she was banished, she still demanded that others respect the noble blood that ran through her veins. "There are most intriguing guests we have here tonight."

The older woman's acid green eyes regarded her hostess carefully and her curiosity was piqued as she sat in probably the only high backed and armed chair on the Isle. She didn't rise or greet her back, she merely stroked the silken fur of her grey tabby, the fourth-generation feline sired by her original cat Lucifer.

The monstrous cat looked ready to eat the woman if the report of an "intriguing" guest was exaggerated.

The hostess had goosebumps raised on her skin, she had never quite liked any cat from Lucifer's line and most wondered if they had any Cheshire in them. There was something too intelligent in their eyes and malicious in their grins.

"There are guests who go by the names of Brad and Robin, they brought in quite the robust payment," Tremaine wasn't sure what was so intriguing about that. There were plenty of nobles who visited the Isle and brought high payment. "So robust that they could afford the four Most Precious Gems for the entire night. You wanted it reported anytime someone of note might be in attendance," she reminded the madam.

"What rooms are they in?" Lady Tremaine was never one to pass up a potential opportunity. If the youths were that rich, then it would behoove her to know as much about them as they could.

"Brad is in the Platinum Suite, Robin in Gold," the hostess promptly replied, and both women walked to another hidden pathway that led to the upper-class whore rooms. The hallways were not decorated but they were clean and the path well used. They stopped at a plain grey wall with an unassuming square piece of wood mounted.

Carefully the madam slid off the piece to reveal two small slits that gave them a perfect view of the room, the holes obscured by gossamer fabric. No one in the room was the wiser of the peepholes, only the hostess and the madam were aware of its existence, as well as the existence of similar spying holes in each wall of each suite in the brothel.

Having been the madam of a brothel for the last decade, she was immune to the sounds of skin slapping against each other and the pleasurable moans of customers.

Very few would be able to afford the night of just one of her most popular whores, a customer had to be obscenely wealthy to bring enough to afford three at one time.

There, panting like an animal in heat was someone she would recognize from anywhere and she congratulated herself on her foresight of having spy holes. She had stared into the eyes of her husband's daughter for over a decade, trying to break her spirit with menial tasks and ill treatment. She would recognize Cinderella's child anywhere.

Her head started to fill with all sorts of delicious ways she would have her revenge. She doubted anyone knew where the boy was, as the scandal would be too great. Even if anyone did, she doubted they'd admit to it as it would implicate them for visiting Isle whores or that they allowed a prince of Auradon to go. Certainly, the boy would at least have the sense to have as few people know he was doing something so licentious.

"The boy came with a friend," the hostess reminded the owner of the brothel.

Tremaine's first instinct was to ignore the friend, assuming it was some idiotic teenage noble with more titles and money than sense. He obviously was the prince's inferior if he only got the castoff Gem. But she knew she should at least check. If nothing else, the other customer could be another person to blackmail and further her plans.

When she went to peep in the other suite, she noticed that he was not rutting with Amethyst and they were speaking too low to hear what they were saying. They only seemed to be having a nice conversation and enjoying a few drinks.

Probably some friend the brat dragged along and not ready to become a man. Definitely not a noble as they all think they can have and do whatever they want. No one of importance.

Gemma's was not wealthy enough to have a television or electricity, so Lady Tremaine did not recognize the Crown Prince.

"There are guards at their door?" she questioned her hostess, the woman nodded. "Good, keep them at the friend's door and do not under any circumstance let anyone in or out. Once the brat of that lowborn cow finishes, send in Cole and Ember."

Diamond hummed and obeyed; with a quick curtsy she went off to find their two most vicious bouncers.

Chad had been assured that he would be perfectly safe on the Isle, as so many of his fellow Charmington and Cinderellaburg guards had been before and for the last twenty years. He had recognized a few of his father's guards, and even some mid-level nobles, at Gemma's. He had been assured that there were high-ranking nobles, even lesser royalty, at Fleur's. No one had seemed out of sort or worried, it was a place to relax and indulge.

Even if there wasn't a code among whores to not care about their client's name or occupation, it was common sense to not bite the hand that fed. Further, he was told that most of the whores wouldn't know their clients anyway as television was a luxury that most could not afford. TV was an energy waster which the Isle couldn't support for everyone, and further they only got one channel that only showed Royal propaganda. Most Isle citizens didn't think a television was worth the fuel or even time to waste watching.

He had been confident that he wouldn't be recognized by anyone of importance.

He genuinely didn't expect to be kidnapped and tied to a chair. The prince didn't care about who owned the brothel, he only wanted to know what the whores looked like and what they were willing to do.

Never in a million years would he had thought his former step-grandmother would be running a whore house and would be bold enough to kidnap him. It was especially embarrassing when he had finished inside of Onyx and took a break while his body recovered, two of the most massive men he had ever seen had come bounding in and took him by the arms, naked as the day he was born and dragged him away. He was only grateful that before they tied him to the chair in another room, he had been given his clothes

What was worse was that she had told him she taken Ben as hostage as well, but the Crown Prince was being held elsewhere.

She wasn't like anything he had expected. He, like every other child in Auradon, had known of his mother's tale. Beautiful girl unjustly made a servant in her own home, enduring years of slave like labor under three horrible harpies while still maintaining a kind heart. Cinderella's kindness had earned her no less than the favor of a star fae and the love of a prince.

He had always pictured Lady Tremaine to be a fat lazy woman who shrilly demanded to be waited on hand and foot. A woman who ate biscuits and drank wine selfishly while his mother cooked and cleaned until her fingers bled. What stood before him was a statuesque woman who had seemed to have never seen a day of happiness in her life. Permanent frown lines marred her otherwise delicate features, it seemed age had not yet caught up to her even on the Isle. Although she had been disentitled and all her lands attainted, it seemed she had still found a way to retain a lady-in-waiting to do her hair. Her locks were almost completely white and was styled in a high heart-shaped pompadour. While her clothes were not as fine as they would have been should she had still been a dowager baroness, they were well fitted and mimicked the tight corset style favored in her generation. Acid green, almost fey, eyes looked upon him with disdain and hatred, made him want to shrink and cower, he had never felt less like a prince than he did under the contemptuous stare of Lady Tremaine.

Maybe I could scream, the place is swarming with guards loyal to my family. It'd be embarrassing, but it's not like they can report me.

It seemed Lady Tremaine had read his thoughts,

"Make one wrong move or call for help and your friend will end up in pieces," her threat left no room for ambiguity.

"Where is he?" he held onto the hope that she was none the wiser of Ben's royal status.

"You don't need to worry about that. All you need to know is that he's safe…for now."

"What do you want?" desperation rang through his voice, ready to give her whatever she desired. He would buy out all of Whole Foods and every Farmer's Market in Auradon if it meant they could leave safely. He could buy an elephant's weight in silks and linens, and make her the richest woman on the Isle.

"What do you think I want, you stupid boy?" she sneered at him, as if even the most simple idiot could not guess. Her humble walking stick hewn from driftwood came dangerously close to striking him on the head. "I want to be free from this wretched Isle."

Chad whimpered at the request, dread filling his stomach. His money could buy almost anything thrice over, but he was just a minor prince in the end. He didn't have the power to grant her freedom, and even if he did the consequences would be too great. There was no justification under the sun that would explain why an exiled noble could return to Auradon from the Isle. People would ask too many questions, and eventually the truth would come to light. The common people could not find out that he had been to the Isle for whores. It would be even worse for Ben and quite possibly the end of House Bourbon's reign.

He was only thankful that it seemed Tremaine did not know who Ben was, because if she did then she'd be making the demands on him and not Chad. If anything, she probably would have killed him from the start, Chad being useless next to have the heir to the throne of all of Auradon in their possession.

How am I going to get him out of here?

"You will write a letter to your mother," she said the word as if it was poison in her mouth, "and let her know of your predicament."

Tremaine smiled spitefully at the thought of Cinderella finding out exactly what her precious son had been up to in order to find himself in the trouble he was in.

"You will lay out our demands. Either she petitions the Crown, or if she's too embarrassed then she'll see to her own people. Either way, with her tender heart I know she'll do whatever it takes to free you and save you from the embarrassment of scandal."

Personally, if she had whelped such an incompetent offspring, she would have been more than happy to wipe her hands clean and pretend she had never birthed such a stupid creature.

For the first time that night, shame started to unfurl in his stomach, dark, poisonous, and unrelenting. His mother would do anything to free him and he hated he was so stupid to put her in such a position.

He couldn't bear the thought of her worrying about him, and even more how disappointed she would surely be that he had been visiting whores.

He wouldn't be surprised if his Uncle would disinherit him if he found out he had employed male whores.

Then he thought about his Uncle, who he was certain would be found out had helped him. Then people would wonder how they were able to get onto the Isle, he knew the citizens of Auradon would be infuriated to know how often their security was put at risk. So many people would fall from favor and the consequences unfathomable, all because he couldn't control his base desires.

Part of him wanted to fight, to declare that he'd rather cut off his hand than write to his mother about his disgraceful actions. But fear overcame his pride, he knew Lady Tremaine would probably take him up on his offer and send his severed hand to his mother.

He also had Ben to think about, even though Tremaine didn't seem to know she had the Crown Prince, that didn't mean she wouldn't use him to control Chad.

"I can't write to my mother, please. I can bring you whatever you want. Boxes and boxes, even boat loads of food and whatever you want. I can send it once a week..." he blathered on, desperately trying to think of what he could.

Instead of answering him, Lady Tremaine locked eyes with her henchman and gave him an almost imperceptible nod. The brute took no time to cock back his fist and let it crash into the prince's jaw. The force of the strike was so hard that Chad fell over to the filthy floor, blood rushing down and mixed with the dust to create a fetid paste.

Dazed, the prince coughed through the pain; his tongue ran against his teeth and he was certain a few were loose. Lady Tremaine's thug grabbed Chad by the collar and lifted him for his fist to meet the royal's face again.

Certain that her message had gone through, she daintily lifted her hand to stop her henchmen who had immediately dropped the boy and dutifully stood back into a dark corner, waiting for when his mistress would need him again.

"I think you need some time to consider your options…or lack of them. Don't even think of calling for help, I'm sure your mother would still pay our ransom if you were missing a few pieces. If pressed too hard, well then I'll see to it that the Charming line dies with you."

She wasn't sure if Chad even heard her as he could only breath through the pain, but she and her underlings all left him laying on the floor to mull over what he had to do.

The prince didn't know how much time had passed before the pain dulled to a throbbing ache. One eye was completely swelled shut, but luckily his other eye was mostly unharmed, and he could take in his surroundings. He was still in the dank room he had been tied in, and it was eerily quiet. There were no windows and he couldn't tell what time it was. He only hoped that it wasn't so late that most of the soldiers and Mainlanders had gone home.

He remembered Tremaine's threats and opted to remain quiet, he had no doubt that she would make good on her promise to remove pieces of his body. He tugged at his restraints, hoping it would come loose but it was to no avail. He desperately looked around, hoping that something was left there for him to free himself.

What to do if he did get free, he had no idea but one problem at a time.

Unfortunately, the room was bare, and he started to lose hope.

For a few moments that seemed to stretch on for eons, he could only hear his own strained breathing from trying to work through the pain in his head. The only escape plan that seemed viable to him at the moment were miracles. He didn't tell anyone he was coming to the Isle, his Uncle was only aware that he had the remote to get in. It might be days before king Ferdinand would think he was on the Isle, and he wasn't so sure if the king of Charmington would reveal that information. There would be too much at risk to acknowledge that the Isle got regular visitors for whores, even worse that the visitors were royalty and nobility. Chad knew that Ferdinand would rather die heirless and leave two thrones to two of the largest kingdoms in Auradon fighting than open himself to scandal and ridicule.

"Someone, please help me," he pathetically cried out to no one, desperately wishing upon a star he couldn't see. Of course, no one could hear him and no one was going to save him.

Chad was about to call out to Tremaine and write the letter she demanded. He knew she wouldn't be able to get what she wanted, but it would at least buy him some time to think of another way out. He had faith that his parents would send for him and Ben, he only dreaded not only disappointing his mother but the possibility that his reputation may take a hit that it could not recover from.

He felt even worse for Ben and dragging him to the Isle, he would go down in history books as helping the fall of a great royal dynasty.

But certainly living was worth losing everything?

Whatever was in his bloodline that Fate favored his family and produced miracles happened before he said a word, as faint scratching noises made him stop and desperately look to where it was.

Out from a decrepit wall came an ordinary grey mouse, one out of thousands that could be found on the Isle.

Chad had never been so happy to see anything in his short wealthy and privileged life. He let out a short disbelieving laugh at his luck, although he immediately regretted it as he had also smiled and it had disturbed the gashes on his face and bruising around his eye.

"Come here, please" he whispered, only going as loud as he dared. He didn't know if anyone was outside the door, but he assumed any hint of him conspiring to escape would promptly be stopped and he couldn't take the risk.

The small rodent obeyed and scurried to the fallen prince. The creature stood on its hind legs, its nose twitching at scenting the air in front of Chad's face and cocked its head as he found the injured human it could understand to be a curiosity.

"What's your name little guy?"

"Davy," the mouse started to bounce in place with excitement, a human had never tried to talk to him before and it was the first time he had understood their language. Normally they were always weary of the vicious cat that lurked the brothel and its evil mistress that laughed and congratulated the beast when he ate his kin.

"I'm Chad, I'm a prince from Auradon."

Davy didn't know what all of that meant, but he liked the boy's voice and he smelled of fresh greens. The small mouse also felt sorry for him as he was clearly injured.

"I need you to eat through these ropes and free me, could you please do that?"

"Sure! I'm the best chewer in the family, my mother says so," the young rodent couldn't help but brag. True to his word, Davy ran on his little scratchy mouse paws around the human to his bindings and started to chew through the flax bindings. It took the tiny mouse several minutes, but he bit through enough that Chad was able to break free.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you," Chad must have repeated a hundred times, so grateful for the help.

He gently picked up the mouse and put him at eye height.

"Do you know where they're keeping my friend? He's my height with brown hair and brown eyes."

Davy shook his head, he mainly kept towards the kitchens and where they kept the garbage.

Chad wasn't all that surprised, but still disappointed and tried to think of the best course of action.

I need to find an Auradonian guard. It might be embarrassing, but we all have to keep each others' secrets.

"Do you know how to get out of here? Without running into thugs?"

"I know the way!" Davy squeaked, and the prince was relieved that something was going his way. The mouse did some reconnaissance and there was no one outside the door. He perched the rodent on top of his shoulder and the mouse whispered how to navigate the hallway.

Because he had been tied up and in a hidden hallway, it seemed Lady Tremaine or his guard decided to take a break. There was blessedly no one in their immediate vicinity, and he even made his way downstairs without running into anyone.

There really was something lucky about his blood, and he promised to donate to orphaned babies or whatever in order to give thanks.

He didn't know what time it was, but it must have been late as there weren't any customers left in the main lounge area. He had hoped he would find one that could help him overtake the brothel's thugs, but his current dilemma was to stay and try to find Ben himself, or venture out to find help.

The throbbing in his face reminded him he was outmatched by muscle as well as number, he would do no good by blindly walking around and hoping he'd find Ben.

"I'll come back for him, I'll save him," he whispered to himself and hoped the feeling of being an absolute coward would fade in time. He was certain he could forgive himself anything as long as Ben came back to Auradon safe.

He only hoped that Ben was unhurt, or at the very least in one piece. Even if the Crown Prince had been beaten bloody as Chad had been, it didn't matter the situation as long as his friend was alive. The streets were empty as well as he hurried out of the brothel, but he heard commotion towards the beach. It was clearly the end of the night and most had already headed home.

He rushed down the dirt road with a slight limp, he was desperate to get there in time for help. He was certain that the visiting guards would be enough to overtake a brothel, and a few well placed bribes would keep them quiet.

There were a few stragglers and he had quickly made his way towards them,

"Please, you have to help me. I'm prince Chad of House Charming..."

Drink and whores made the guards relaxed and slow, they blinked lazily at Chad who at the moment looked nothing like a prince. Their foggy minds made them forget what their prince had even looked like and giggled bubbled up from their throats.

The sight of the boy bruised and bloodied didn't seem to phase them as they mocked,

"Sure, and I'm Queen Belle," both guards dissolved into laughter, thinking their job was witty beyond measure. He tried again to get them to listen to him, but it seemed as if none of them were sober enough, even the one driving the boat had swayed on his feet and none of them had weapons.

"Are you coming or not?" the drunken guards asked, "We stayed too long. Even the guards that circle the Isle have gone. We got to be real careful…" he broke down in giggles.

They're not going to help me

And he wouldn't trust going with them anyway in the state they were in. He didn't understand how they were able to keep their visits a secret if they were driving boats around stumbling drunk. He also found out that he couldn't count on the other guards as well as it was too late into the night and all but the ones in front of him had gone home already.

Chad didn't waste any more time on inebriated guards, and he couldn't risk going to Cinderellaburg. As much as he wanted to save Ben, he selfishly still wanted to find a way so no punishment would be met on either of them. While he didn't want all the responsibility of the lesser crown, he also knew it was better to be rich and powerful than penniless and disgraced.

Instead of trying to beg for help, he rushed to his vehicle and thankfully the remote was unmolested and where he had hidden it in his car. He turned the key and tires squealed as he back up, he almost hit the two guards and soon he was on his way off the Isle.

He looked at the dashboard clock and say it was 2am. It was early Saturday morning and it'd be hours until dawn.

As he drove, he had no epiphany of how he would get Ben off the Isle.

The remote only knows its way to Belle Harbor; even if I wanted to go to Charmington for Uncle Ferdie's help, it'd probably be too late as I'd have to go to Auradon City then drive through Cinderellaberg…do I know anyone with a ship that could cross Belle Bay?

He mentally went through all of his contacts and none of them were trustworthy enough to remain discreet. He also didn't know where they would be at that hour or if they would be able to come up with a plan in time. He had no idea if they would be able to take on the Isle without someone noticing.

I need someone who knows the Isle...I need someone from the Isle.

His first thought was to get to Mal. If the rumors were true, and he ignored the niggling voice in his head that said he started most of them, then she was practically a princess in her own right and ruled the Isle with her evil mother with an iron fist.

She could probably tell Tremaine to hand over Ben and keep them all quiet. Plus, she owes Ben, she would do it for sure. Everything she has in Auradon is because of Ben.

He conveniently forgot that the Isle Four more than likely hated him, and his plan started to sound better and better.

He tried to remember if she was still in the hospital, and if she was then he was certain she was well enough to visit the Isle. It'd been over a week since she had been attacked.

She's a faery, don't they heal quickly?

He didn't think she really needed to fight, she just needed to show up and throw her dark fae weight around. Mal was daughter to Maleficent, that had to mean something on the Isle. If he recalled the documentary, then it was suggested that the evil faery ran things.

And the hostess specifically didn't want anyone outside the brothel to know about the Isle Four dupes, that means she's scared of someone finding out.

Mal and her mother could probably be paid off cheaply as well, if the whores could be paid in linens and food then certainly a literal prince's ransom of the stuff should be more than sufficient.

Chad sighed in relief when the plan played out in his head, feeling for the first time he had control of the situation.

I'll get Mal, we'll hop over to the Isle. She can get her mother or whatever, we'll demand Tremaine release Ben and we'll give them an entire Whole Foods and Bed Bath and Beyond.

Chad slightly winced when he remembered that Ben had been in love with Mal and probably wouldn't appreciate that she would find out he had been visiting whores. The girl would probably be rather offended if she ever found out that the whore Ben paid for looked like her as well. But he doubted the whore would be within sight and what Mal didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

He can't be that much in love with her if he could visit a whore...and it's not like he could have ever seriously dated her. Their children wouldn't be able to inherit the Throne. She's in love with Carlos, a much better match for her and Ben will be embarrassed, but it might drive through to his head that Mal isn't for him. It's for the best...and he probably would prefer to be saved rather than rot away on the Isle.

His resolved solidified, he didn't have the time to try to figure out something else and he doubted a perfect plan existed where no one was embarrassed or didn't get into trouble.

He parked his borrowed car in the common student's lot as it would have looked out of place among the luxury vehicles in the royal lot.

It was late enough that no one was around, not even the chaperones who had patrolled the dorms. He scurried to the dorm castle, wishing the poorer student's parking lot wasn't so out of the way. He tried to remember where Mal and Evie's dorm room was, he would need the witch to find out where Mal's hospital room was in the event the dark fae wasn't back at school.

Luck was on his side when he saw a flash of blue from his peripheral and saw that it was Evie and Jay themselves walking from one of the cars he knew Ben had gifted them. What they were doing at that hour when there was a curfew, he didn't care to know but he made his way to the pair.

Evie didn't know if it was her mother's blood or something innate in all witches, but she had an overwhelming desire to curse everyone at the hospital. The staff didn't seem to understand that they were Mal's family and had every right to be there overnight. The three had tried to stay the night, but they were told in no uncertain terms that only one could remain. They decided to take turns and Carlos was given the right to stay the first night after Mal was well enough to receive visitors. The next would be Jay, and then Evie could stay the next Friday night. Hopefully Mal would be well enough to leave before then, but they also didn't want to take any chances.

T hey had almost gotten away with all three sleeping in Mal's hospital room, Evie didn't understand why they didn't let them stay when they were caught at midnight. Thankfully they had been given passes to stay out by Crown Prince Ben, otherwise they would be in trouble for sneaking back into the dorm so late.

The last thing Evie or Jay would have thought to encounter that late was a bloody and bruised Chad Charming coming out of nowhere.

"I need to see Mal," Chad insisted through a black eye and a bleeding lip, not even bothering to greet them.

Evie frowned, confused by the state of the lesser prince and not liking his tone.

"She's recovering and Carlos is staying the night in the hospital with her. What happened to you?"

"Look, I have an issue that only Mal can help with. What's her hospital room, she's at Baymax General, right?"

"I'm not going to tell you that, and have you seen yourself? They're not going to let you into the hospital without checking you over. What's wrong?"

"It's a private matter between me and Mal…"

"What 'private matter' could you possibly have with her?" the prince was being shady and she was less and less likely to cooperate with him.

Chad huffed, thinking the witch was nothing but a frivolous fashionista that would be no help, but he didn't have much of a choice. He was wasting time trying to be vague.

"Ben's been kidnapped, he's on the Isle and we need to go rescue him."

"Excuse me?" she must have heard him wrong, how could anyone have kidnapped the Crown Prince of Auradon.

And if he is kidnapped, why is this idiot going to Mal and not to the Royal Guard?

Chad tried to look anywhere but Evie and thought as fast as he could for a lie, but no such fabrication could come to him. He scoffed at himself and decided his friend's safety and life was more important than saving him from an embarrassing truth.

"We were both on the Isle, Lady Tremaine found us and is holding him hostage. She has all these crazy demands, ones that no one can grant her."

"What were you doing..." and then understanding struck her like lightening, her jaw dropped and eyes narrowed. She knew better than most exactly why two men from Auradon would be on the Isle and further, how Lady Tremaine got her old decrepit hands on the Crown Prince. "You were there visiting Gemma's because you're an idiot and would visit the brothel of the villainess that abused your mother."

Judgement was pouring off both the Isle teens, Jay stood behind Evie and frowned in condescending contempt while slowly shaking his head.

Chad remained silent as he rather she thinks him a daft idiot rather than he chose based on the brothel that offered doppelgängers of the Isle Four.

"Well, you're a bigger idiot if you think any of us would ever go back to that gods forsaken place; especially Mal. Don't ever waste my time like this ever again," with an air of finality, she quickly did an about face in three-inch heels and started to walk away, Jay devotedly behind her.

"No wait, you have to help," the prince of Cinderellaburg and Charmington arrogantly and desperate told her, he then grabbed her arm and tried to force her to look at him.

Quickly, Jay grabbed Chad's wrist and with a skilled hand, twisted so that Chad had to let her go and he yelped in pain. He was brought down to his knees as Jay towered over him.

"Prince or no prince," Jay all but growled darkly, "touch her again and you won't have hands." He didn't care if he was threatening royalty, he could not tolerate any other attack on those he loved.

Chad had always known the Isle boy was strong, it was the first time Chad felt a shiver of fear and worried about his safety.

Evie merely looked at him as if he were a worthless bug that had landed on her designer jacket, completely unworried as she knew Jay would not only protect her but could easily defeat the spoiled royal.

Jay mercifully let him go and he learned his lesson. He swallowed his pride, he needed their help. "Please," he said to their retreating backs. "Ben needs your help."

Evie turned around, annoyed that Chad was being so insistent.

"He literally has his own personal guard, there's the Royal Guard, and then there is the National Guard...all better equipped to save him than three teenagers."

"We can't go to our guards. If we do, then I have to tell them we were there for whores, they'll tell our parents..."

"Oh wow, you might have to actually face the consequences of your actions? I'll be sure to light a candle at St. Paige's."

Jay couldn't help the laugh that escaped at her sarcasm.

"It's not our parents you have to worry about. We're talking about an invasion of the Isle, people are bound to notice. Especially if we have to get the disgraced Dr. FéeMarraine involved. What do you think will happen if Ben is caught with whores? House Bourbon cannot weather this scandal on top of the curse of the Beast. Once they're ousted, guess who is next in line? It won't be me as I'll be implicated as well. That leaves House Dornröschen as the next Royal House in the line of succession according to the Treaty of Unification. Do you really want Audrey and whatever puppet king she eventually marries dictating policy of Auradon? What about the Isle-to-Auradon program? Do you think Audrey, or anyone else besides Ben would champion such a cause?"

Chad was not above using emotional blackmail to save Ben, and from the way Evie stilled and the tension in her jaw as he kept talking was any indication, he was getting through to her.

"The way I see it, you either go back to the Isle now, save Ben, and then are welcomed back to Auradon. Or you go back to the Isle later when Audrey is crowned reigning Queen and you all are kicked out."

Queen Aurora and king Phillip were still of sound mind and health, it'd be maybe decades before Audrey would be crowned. But that didn't guarantee that Aurora would not banish them, particularly Mal, back to the Isle before that happened. Auroria was notorious for its anti-magic lobbying, followed by East Riding. Charmington had always been neutral, only Camelot Heights, Cinderellaburg, and Westerly had any pro-fae leanings but after the incident with Jane, Ben was their only ally at court. If he was gone then there'd be no one to speak for the Isle children.

Jay and Evie stared at each other, their silent agreement that they would need their go bags ready. If things went south, then they needed to be ready to escape to Camelot Heights.

Before Chad could sigh in relief when Evie finally faced him, certain that she would acquiesce, a sharp burst of pain had bloomed in the middle of his face. The prince staggered backwards and his hands instinctively went to his face, when he pulled them away he saw they were marred with more blood.

"Hey, my nose was already broken!"

"Don't be such a baby," she rolled her eyes at his dramatics. "it's well-deserved for going to the Isle for whores. Lead me to your room."

"What?"

"Surely with your princely education, you know what 'lead me to your room' means."

Despite the throbbing pain in his face,

"Yes, I know what it means, but I don't know why."

"If we're going to the Isle, we're going to need payment. I'm certainly not giving anything of mine away."

And with that, she walked towards the dorm and Jay rolled his eyes when Chad still wouldn't move. He roughly pushed the prince to follow, and both boys hurriedly followed the blue witch.

Chad was surprised at how light footed both could be as they snuck around the dorms. While there might have been strict rules for the common students, Evie and Jay found out that the royal wing was basically left unmolested of the new technology that tracked the comings and goings of students. Even the chaperones were basically nonexistent, and both wondered where Chad's bodyguards had gone to.

If they had constant supervision of guards like they're supposed to, how could they have gotten to the Isle? If they had been doing their jobs, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Evie tried to focus on the mission at hand but couldn't help but feel a little bitter at how unfairly leniently the royals were treated while common students were treated little better than criminals.

While the Isle teens had walked almost predatorily silent, Chad just walked as he normally did. He didn't understand why the two were being so cautious, it wasn't like they were in danger in the dorm. Once they reached his suite, the two had relaxed and Evie eyed what was in the room that could be of value on the Isle.

"All of the silver and bronze, all the linens," she had Jay start with the obvious. He nodded and started to work on stripping the apartment of what they would be able to carry.

"Show me your closet," she demanded as she didn't know her way around his apartment. Chad's feet walked on their own as he didn't want to be hit again, but he was so confused as to why they were ransacking his room.

In any other situation, Evie would drool at the walk-in closet that was almost as big as the dorm she shared with Mal. There seemed to be endless amounts of clothes for every type of occasion hung on velvet and satin hangers, there were several dozen pairs of shoes to match whatever colour scheme the prince chose for the day, and watches imbedded with diamonds and inlayed with mother of pearl.

Most of this is completely useless.

She thought as she judged each garment as she passed, skipping anything formal or strictly fashionable as there was no use for such things on the Isle. She did stop by the casual wear such as sports suits and jeans. There were several sports bags and even luggage that she helped herself to and started to pack Chad's clothes.

"Hey, those are mine, what are you doing?" momentarily forgetting about Ben and worried that he might be losing his things.

She ignored his stupid question and kept on taking things and stuffed them into cases.

By instinct he had reached out to grab her, wanting her to stop from taking all of his wardrobe, but his self-preservation had kicked in before he made contact. She merely sneered at him, knowing what he had almost done, and she almost dared him with her eyes to try and stop her.

"I'm taking all of your jeans and items made of cotton and wool, you won't be left with nothing. Your fancy suits and silk shirts are useless on the Isle."

"But why are we bringing them?"

"For payment of course," She didn't understand why she had to keep repeating herself. "We need to bring as much linen, clothes, and whatever can be melted down."

"Lady Tremaine doesn't want any of this, she wants freedom and transportation to Cinderellaburg. She's not going to accept my used clothes."

"These aren't for her," she snapped at him, she couldn't believe he'd be so dense to think she would be dumb enough to hope that a few trinkets would sway the former baroness.

"I think we have more than enough, then. I've never heard of a whore taking more than a few bedsheets and a small box of groceries," he had guessed they were going to try to bribe the whores that worked for Tremaine to helping them free the prince.

"We're not going to whores. You're an idiot if you think they'll betray their madam. They still have to live there, they're not going to anger her and risk starvation for what they could make in a week."

"Then who are we going to?"

"Someone much more expensive," she remained vague and continued packing. Chad realized he wasn't going to win that fight and also realized that he could always buy a new wardrobe, and no one would bat an eye. He started to help pack his clothes, although he was reprimanded by Evie a few times for trying to take up room with "useless items."

Gucci sneakers are not useless, they're worth 2,000 F!

He was also surprised that she had no interest in any of his fine watches or diamond cufflinks.

"What are they going to do with a watch or cufflinks? Go to the annual Isle ball?"

The sarcasm was so thick that he was on the verge of crying hurt tears, but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction.

Whatever, I don't even want to give them away…they have lots of value, no matter what she says.

He was a bit exasperated that she had taken all of his underwear, undershirts, and socks. He wasn't left with anything. Given her short fuse from his earlier blunders, and dragging her into his mess in general, he wisely kept quiet.

They both dragged several bags and suitcases to his living room, Jay had made his sheets into bags and they held every bit of silverware and bronze vases that he happened to have in his room.

Noooo, not the towels. Those are my favorite...so fluffy.

Evie and Jay ignored Chad's petulant frowns that he was failing spectacularly at hiding. They had no patience for a spoiled prince who could probably replace everything they were taking within the night.

Jay eyed Chad's cell phone, wanting to take it out of spite even though he had stopped stealing.

It was frustratingly easy for them to sneak out of the royal wing and re-appropriate a limo.

"Where are you two going?" Chad harshly whispered, not sure why they weren't on their way back to the Isle. Time was of the essence and he hated to think what they were doing to Ben.

"We're going to the kitchens. If you ask one more time what we're doing, I'm going to throw you into the bay," Evie had lost all her patience with the prince. She couldn't believe he'd have the audacity to ask for help, and then question everything she did.

Chad immediately went silent, knowing that any further agitation of the witch could very well see him maimed. He finally accepted that he just needed to shut up and help.

"Shoot, there are all the chaperones. And I heard the fridges have locks now," Evie realized a hiccup to her plan.

"I can pick the locks, but I don't know what to do about the chaperones. We don't know their schedule," Jay added, they could manage as they were adept at sneaking out but they were in a hurry.

"We can go to the royal kitchens," Chad offered, hoping to be helpful.

"The what kitchens?" Evie couldn't believe how spoiled and wealthy the royals were.

"The…royal wing has a full kitchen for our personal chefs…lets just go," he stopped when it seemed the two did not appreciate the extra information.

Luckily no other royal was feeing peckish that night and the kitchen was empty, Chad helped gather all the canned goods, fresh produce, and dry foods he could. He had no idea how they would explain the theft, but hopefully no one would think to question him or the others. He knew he owed Evie and Jay a great deal and tried to think of ways to get them an alibi in case.

He also knew Ben would cover for them, none of them needed to be brought down because of a few missing cans of beans.

Jay saw the boxes of food they were able to procure, still not convinced it would be enough if they were going to who he thought they were going to.

"Do you think we should bring weapons?" he asked Evie as he had knew Chad wouldn't know his ass from his elbow when it came to Isle politics.

Evie surveyed their stash, thinking it would be a good idea but,

"Where would we get weapons? We can't give them guns or anything."

"No," he whole heartedly agreed. It would be disastrous if anyone on the isle had a firearm. "I was thinking the R.O.A.R. swords. They've got tons of them, they won't miss a few dozen missing."

"Aren't they blunt?" she wasn't sure if they would be worth hauling.

"Yeah, but they can figure out how to sharpen them. They're sturdy enough to be used as real swords."

"OK, lets get a couple of bags. If they don't like them, they can still melt them down," she reasoned.

Chad was relieved that they were finally going to the Isle after they retrieved the swords. He wasn't sure who would want them, even if they were sharpened.

Who on the Isle would want a sword?

But he was also grateful that they hadn't wanted firearms. There were a few things even a prince twice over wouldn't be able to procure.

Jay drove while Chad was in the front seat, holding the clicker that would allow them to span the bay and into the Isle. The prince noticed that Evie was busy in the back seat, tearing up his sheets and fashioning a headwrap for herself and bandanas for them both. He wasn't sure how they would sneak past anyone. They were all dressed in their Auradon clothes, from what he recalled from the Isle the residents mostly wore undecorated and simple tunics and breeches. He vaguely remembered Ben telling him that whores and henchmen were the only ones who wore anything Auradon made, procured either through payment for whoring or being Maleficent's henchmen and they got the spoils from anything donated from the Mainland. Something Mal had told the Crown Prince during one of their Isle-to-Auradon meetings. It was a pitch from his friend to try to get him interested in helping with his pet program.

He didn't know if they would have to try to pretend to be whores or henchmen, either he didn't think they could pull off.

Well, maybe Evie as a whore.

He made the mistake of looking back again and remembering his time with her doppelgänger. Jay must have noticed because there was a sharp flick of pain on his ears, the Isle boy looking daggers at him. That also made Chad think of the other whore he had purchased earlier. He just hoped that Jay didn't notice his blush as he pointedly stared out of the window.

They drove to the same beach Chad had before, completely empty of anyone and Jay kept driving away from the town, to the Isle's least populated area, where no one lived and not even the Auradon visitors would step foot on. There was only so far Jay could take the limo as they went into dense woods, the trees were pitch black with no leaves, each branch looked like the gnarled limbs of a crone; it was something out of Chad's nightmares. The prince was almost hesitant to step outside the limo, no idea what sort of creature or beast could be lurking in the darkness. He didn't know how Jay and Evie could intrepidly walk about as if they were strolling through the park. He didn't want to look like a coward, and he also didn't want to know what Evie would do to him if she had to open the door and drag him out, so he cautiously looked around and got out. Before he knew it, Evie had taken the magical remote that allowed passage onto the Isle right out of his hand. Her sneer at him told him that there was no way she trusted him with keeping it safe. He didn't have much choice, so he let her stow it away and he only hoped that they wouldn't decide to leave him.

They hid the vehicle under some brush, and then walked towards town.

"Pick up your feet when you walk Chad," Evie hissed at him, she worried about alerting citizens and whatever haunted the forest at night hearing them.

I refuse to die or be stranded here because that idiot walks around like a big clunky baby.

The prince had tried to be more silent, but he had no idea how they were able to walk without making a sound. He tried to mimic their movements, but it seemed no matter what he did he found every twig and soft spot in the forest that would make a noise.

"Chad, you will walk back to the limo and stay there if you can't figure out how to be quiet," she furiously grabbed at his collar and pulled him close. He could see the fury in her eyes and he really thought he might be killed that night.

"I'm sorry," he whispered and genuinely sorry. "I'm trying, I don't know how to act like…" he stopped himself before he said "a villain."

His lack of response was not lost on Evie,

"If you care about your health, you need to not be yourself. If you can't manage it, then you need to stay out of the way. There's a reason even Isle villains don't come out to these woods. There are several things here that could kill us."

"I just want to help Ben."

As angry as Evie was, part of her couldn't help but soften at how worried Chad was for his friend. She knew that she'd do anything for hers. But then she remembered exactly why they had to help Ben and how they could have avoided the whole mess if the boys hadn't been thinking with their cocks.

With a frustrated and stilted huff, she pushed him down and walked a few feet away to get her bearings. It would do no good if she kept losing her temper, being distracted by anger could get them just as easily killed as being careless. Terrible thoughts of being stranded on the Isle, at the mercy of her mother started to overwhelm her.

Jay came to her, pulling her into a hug. He rubbed her back soothingly and whispered,

"We don't have to do this. We have rations and supplies, we can ditch the princes here and not look back. We'll pick up Mal and Carlos, we'll escape to Camelot. Just like we planned. We'll leave it all behind. All that matters is us."

It was so tempting, to disregard both princes to their fate. It's what Auradon had done to them when they were born. Why should she risk her life just because they were being idiots? Ben might have brought them to Auradon, but she could argue that it was no less than what she and the others had deserved. They certainly never deserved the Isle. They were just children, they didn't ask to be born. Whatever they did on the Isle, they did it to survive. That wasn't their fault.

Run, run, run.

Her instincts screamed at her to do. Run from the Isle. Run from being powerless. Run from her mother. Run from danger.

I'd be running from helping others.

She thought of the other Isle children. She, Jay, Carlos, and Mal weren't the only ones who didn't deserve the Isle. None of them did. She thought of Mal, who could have had them run all those months ago. She knew the fae had stayed because Evie and Carlos wanted to try to have a better life. One where they were free and could pursue their passions. She thought of Mal who had comforted her when she was scared when Jay couldn't. She thought of Jay who was there with her now, willing to leave Ben, Chad, and everything he had worked for and had only come to keep her safe in the first place.

If they ran, they would never be safe, they would never know peace. She could be brave, for them.

She shook her head; the fear and anxiety being replaced with determination.

"I can do this," she promised him, fierce resolve in her eyes.

"I love you," he reminded her, and kissed her to reaffirm that he was there for her, no matter what she chose.

Chad felt awkward at the intimate moment, wondering if he should turn his back and give them some privacy. Though something had tugged at his heart, to see Evie and Jay comfort one another. He privately wondered if he would love anyone like that.

Will anyone love me like that?

He thought of all the girls that clamored for his attention, but he knew none of them genuinely cared for him. They cared for the crowns of Charmington and Cinderellaburg and all the money that came with them. He tried to imagine being born common, maybe even poor. If he had nothing but himself to give, would anyone want him? It made his heart ache to admit that perhaps they wouldn't.

He was broken out of his melancholy thoughts when Evie and Jay walked back to him,

"You want to be sneaky? Let me show you how."

Chad nodded, thinking he could use the quick tutelage despite their time constraints.

While Chad would not be sneaking about undetected anytime soon, he learned enough to at least not draw attention to himself. He hid with Evie as Jay went to look for more inconspicuous clothes when they got to the outskirts of town. He was proud at how he was able to not complain about the rags that Jay had come back with and dressed without making one comment. Evie and Jay hid their hair, Chad had dirtied his face to more easily blend in. Along with the black eye and bruises that formed, he didn't think even his mother would recognize him.

"How do I look?" he asked as he finished.

"Like you'd lose a fight with an alley cat…but nothing we can do about that. I'm sure no one would recognize you, and that's what is important."

Gods, Evie really knows how to accurately hurt my feelings.

Instead of going towards the brothels, they had made their way towards the edge of the Isle where there were some leaning shanties along the water. There was a portion of a boardwalk, but most of it was dilapidated and broken from where the barrier had cut it off. He recalled that the Isle used to be a fishing island. Beyond the shanties there was a beached fishing vessel, rusted and looked like it would have collapsed at any second.

What in the world are we doing here? Is my tetanus shot up to date?

They stopped before the ship, waiting for something Chad wasn't sure, until suddenly a delighted laugh echoed in the metal hull, startling Chad who had jumped and latched onto Jay, hoping the other boy would protect him. The thief looked questioningly down at where Chad had gripped him and back up to the prince.

Are you seriously holding onto me?

His eyes frowned mockingly, but Chad was too scared to care. He had bodyguards his whole life and the only martial training he's had was for R.O.A.R. and they had only one of the swords, along with just one box of a mix of everything they had to brought with them.

"Well, well, well…if it isn't Princess Blueberry," a girl came out with a wicked smile, her aqua hair in cornrow braids that reached past the small of her back. Flanked behind her were two young men that were at least a head taller than her. The one to her right sported a mean silver hook that glinted under torchlight, the one to her left was broad and bulky and looked ready to fight.

Evie ignored the mean childhood nickname.

"Uma," she greeted the pirate queen. "Harry, Gil," she gave the two boys respectful nods.

The tension broke when Gil gave a surprising cordial welcome and wide smile,

"Hey Evie! You're back on the Isle, it's good to see you," the handsome blond didn't seem to notice the animosity and kept smiling goofily.

Uma frowned and rolled her eyes,

Come on Gil, we've practiced this. We can't be friendly with the enemy.

With a quick smack to his shoulder, Harry reminded him that they were trying to be intimidating. His smile quickly disappeared and was replaced with what he thought was a reproachful look.

Evie had to hide her mirth, she knew that Uma would take it as a sign of disrespect and were trying really hard to appear hard and intimidating.

"We need your help."

"Why? Did you get kicked out of Auradon trying to seduce a prince and now even your mother wouldn't take you in as a whore?"

Evie raised her hand to stop Jay from doing anything rash. She could see he was angry, but they silently communicated that they couldn't waste time on petty fights, and he realized that she didn't need his help to safeguard her honor.

Still, he wanted to punch the smug look off of Hook's face as the pirate smirked at Jay backing down.

"I'm here on behalf of Crown Prince Ben…we need help saving him from Lady Tremaine."

Bwahahahahaha

Harry and Uma broke down in raucous laughter, Gil joined in a few seconds later although he wasn't totally sure what was so funny.

"Oh, does the high prince have a taste for whores?" she figured out quickly what a royal would be doing on the Isle. "Tremaine is like a thousand years old and completely human. You can't tell me you're afraid of a little old woman."

"That little old woman has the most henchmen after Maleficent and my mother…and we need to be discreet."

"Discreet? Who on the Isle would care to know that the saintly prince has been dipping his wick into Isle girls? …although I've heard rumors that he's had a sample of that traitorous purple wench. Where is she by the way? Too scared to come back? Or is she living the high life as his pet fae concubine? Waiting on velvet cushions and eating strawberries for her master to come calling?"

Jay had been Mal's friend since early childhood, there was a loyalty there that even Evie could not hope to hold back. His temper got the better of him and he lunged at Uma, he managed to wrap his hand around her delicate throat, but he was stopped from doing any real damage by Harry, his hook immediately at the thief's neck.

"Oh please do try something, I remember you liking it rather rough," Harry teased, both aroused and bloodthirsty in equal measure, cocksure that he would be able to save Uma and none too worried.

Jay rolled his eyes, irritated that Harry would even bring up their past at a time like that. He kept his hand where it was, all too aware he was more than strong enough to easily crush her throat and suffocate her with one hand.

"I suggest you remove your hook, what are the odds my blade is poisoned?" Evie warned the pirate, who hadn't even noticed she had snuck on him and had a blade pointed at his belly.

He considered his position, he knew that if the witch had cut him it wouldn't hit anything life threatening but he was well aware that she was a more than capable herbalist and she didn't need to do anything more than one small nick and he could be in agony for days, maybe even weeks before he succumbed to what she may have dipped the knife in.

Oh my gods, what is happening?

Chad was about to have a panic attack, how could weapons be drawn already, they had only been speaking for a minute.

It seemed Harry took too long to answer, and she had pulled another blade from her person and placed it above Uma's cheek. The pirate queen started to look worried, as Evie's poisons were infamous on the Isle and the cheeky banter was forgotten.

"I would step away Evie," Gil warned, he had wrestled Chad to the ground and placed a boot on the prince's throat. He was just as strong as his father and could kill in one blow.

Evie merely shrugged,

"I don't care about him. Do you care about him Jay?"

"Not even a little bit."

Gil looked scared towards his captain, he knew that he wouldn't be quicker than Evie would be at cutting either Uma or Harry and was precariously close to losing his two best friends.

"Harry, let him go," Uma managed to bark out, her voice strained from Jay's iron grip.

Jay certainly wasn't worth dying over, and neither were the insults to Mal.

Reluctantly the eldest Hook scion backed his weapon away, and Jay loosened his grip on Uma. Satisfied that they would be more open to talk instead of trading juvenile barbs, Evie eased her knives away and Gil stepped off of Chad and the prince had to get himself up as no one there would help him.

He tried not to dwell on the fact that Evie and Jay were willing to let him die, although he wasn't that surprised. It did still smart a bit. He was also preoccupied with the thought,

Where was Evie hiding those knives? Where are they now?!

He scanned the witch and didn't see where they could be hidden as the disguise wasn't that baggy.

"What do you want?" Uma was no longer manic and laughing, she was an Isle leader who wanted a competing gang out of her territory.

"I told you, we need to save the Crown Prince from Madam Tremaine."

"And why would you come to me?"

"We can't trust the other gangs."

"And you think you can trust me?"

"You're the only gang not in Maleficent's pocket."

"Perhaps not, but Tremaine isn't either. In fact, she's a direct competitor with your mom…" Uma's mind worked out quickly exactly what was going on as she looked the witch up and down, "…you don't want anyone to know you're back on the Isle at all, do you?"

"It's best for everyone involved that no one knows we're here."

"Why, so you don't have to answer to abandoning your family?"

"My family?" Evie asked in disbelief and sneered. "My family came with me to Auradon."

"I'm sure Dizzy would be heartbroken to heart that."

Now it was Evie's turn to restrain herself from smacking the dark pirate.

"Look," she tried to move on, thinking they were going nowhere fast. "The Crown Prince has a program where he takes Isle kids and assimilates them to Auradon. We," referring to the four that have already left. "were just the beginning."

"Oh yes, 'Isle-to-Auradon', my crew is able to get RBN," Uma was slightly insulted that Evie didn't remember her gang was well off enough to afford a television. "We know all about the Prince's 'program.' If he ever gets around to us, we're too old for school. And you know what? I don't think I want to join Auradon. It's a continent filled with prissy assholes who will always look down on us. We see all the reports. Of Mal and you being sweet little magical pets, feasting while we starve and barely scrape by. Well, I'd rather survive on my own as leader of my gang than be some charity case and puppet for the prince."

"We have food and weapons, we can pay you handsomely…a real prince's ransom," she knew that appealing to Uma's sense of charity was a long shot and pointed to the small portion of the bounty they brought.

"You think I'm going to go against Maleficent for that pretty boy? You're asking us to attack a brothel, the only thing on this damned island that makes any real profit. No one is going to just look the other way."

"I thought you weren't afraid of a 'thousand-year-old' lady."

Uma sneered at Evie as if she were simple,

"You shouldn't be afraid of her, you have the cushy life of an Auradonian to go back to. We still have to live here. We may not have much, but I'll defend my little queendom with all I have and I'm not going to risk my people for some idiot prince just trying to get his cock wet. Some of us actually care what happens to the Villain Children."

"We care!" Evie defended herself and insulted at the insinuation, thinking of all the long hours working personally with Crown Prince Ben.

"Yes, with months of silence and pretending we don't exist anymore while you go to prom or whatever those silly rich assholes do when they spend more on a dress than we would on food for a year."

Guilt started to eat at Evie, wondering if she could have done more than just plan to get the Isle children to Auradon. Isle-to-Auradon was a long-term project and solution, there were immediate concerns that they hadn't even thought of to address.

"We're doing the best we can," she replied weakly, the excuse sounding hollow to her own ears.

"Well, while you're doing 'your best,' three of my crew have already died from blue fever and another from tansy poisoning. Twelve whores have died within the last month."

Evie gasped, shocked that the fatality would be so high in just a few months. Tansy poisoning wasn't all that uncommon, it was a risk of the trade but for so many in such a short amount of time was unheard of.

"But…" the witch tried to grasp for a reason.

"It's what happens when Maleficent doesn't give a shit how strong she makes the tea. It's what happens when the only two people who were in charge of brewing it and guarded the recipe jealousy both leave and there's no one else to make it."

Evie thought she was going to be sick, she and the others were so swept up in Auradon and trying to stay, they didn't really think about what would happen to the Isle during their absence.

"I can…I can leave you the recipe and detailed instructions," it was the best she could do although she knew it wouldn't make up for their neglect.

"Well I hope you can make some in time for Dizzy, the auction for right of First Night has already started to take bids."

Evie felt the world fall away from her, Ben and everything else forgotten and her blood ran cold.

"What do you mean?" she asked harshly, on the verge of stabbing Uma if this was the girl's idea of a sick joke.

"You've worked in brothels all your life Blue, certainly you know how the auction goes."

"But Dizzy is only twelve, Maleficent doesn't allow for whores under fourteen."

"You can't be naïve enough to think that was really Maleficent's edict, as if she gives a flying fuck what human whores do."

"Then who…"

"It was Mal," Jay confessed, recalling some of the first rules she had instilled once she started to take on more responsibilities around the Isle and worked in her mother's name. At Evie's confused eyes, begging for more explanation he went on, "We became friends, you helped with finding the Dragon's Eye and just turned thirteen…she had heard whispers of your mother setting up the auction for you."

While she never enjoyed a particularly close relationship with her mother, she had always thought Ravenna had protected her from working in the brothel. She never knew that she had come close to being sold when she was younger.

"So, she made up the rule and used her mother's name to give it weight and buy you more time. Maleficent thought Mal was just being spiteful and went along with it because she thought it was funny. Your mom then got it into her head that you could nab a prince…I don't know why Maleficent stopped caring."

"Too many whores have died, both Gemma's and Fleur's are taking in really young girls and boys," all joking aside, Uma was serious as a grave.

"You can bid for her," Evie turned to Harry. The pirate might be a horndog, but he had never had an inclination for anyone so young, she knew that he'd save Dizzy. "You can get her alone the first night and smuggle her out. She can join your crew, she can cook, clean, and sew."

"We've already tried, love. We were outbid, quickly," in a rare moment of sincerity, Harry Hook actually looked apologetic.

"We'll give you more tribute…"

"And where will we say we got it?" Uma pointed out the flaws in Evie's plan, although she could sympathize with the other girl, she wasn't about to put her life or any of her crew on the line. "Even if we did get First Night, there are all the other nights after it. We can't afford to offer being a sponsor and I doubt Tremaine would sell her permanently. We don't have enough to defend ourselves if attacked because we took her...I have to think of my crew first. It was a stupid plan."

Still, Evie was more determined than ever,

"Fine, I'll take care of Dizzy when we rescue Ben," any hope of subtly was long gone.

"I don't think you've been listening Blue, we're not getting involved."

Evie looked coldly at Uma, and took a note from Chad,

"You're under the mistaken impression that you really have a choice. Do you really think the Crown Prince is going to stay here? Or that Tremaine really could get off the Isle? No, one way or another Ben is getting rescued. Do you really want King Adam to have to come here? This place is a shithole on a good day and that's when he gives zero fucks about the place. What do you think it'll be like if he starts to pay attention? Trust me, I've seen first-hand his dislike of all things magical, hell he almost banished a half fae girl no older than us because she used magic. You do not want the Crown's undivided attention, especially since you're half Cecaelia. And what happens when the public finds out that there's some backdoor way onto and off the Isle, and that guards have been using it to visit whores? You're right, the brothels are the only thing here that really make any money. What happens to everyone when all of that stops?"

The fragile economy of the Isle would be completely ruined, and Uma started to realize that with a horrifying clarity. And whatever meagre freedom they did have, it would disappear if the Crown suddenly started to care what they were up to.

"So, you either help us free Ben quietly and no one in Auradon is the wiser with the bounty we give you, or you get a front row seat to the might of the Crown smashing down on you."

Uma didn't answer right away, regardless of the credibility of a threat she always weighed her options about what was best for her crew.

"Fine," she gritted through clenched teeth, willing to swallow her pride in order to protect her people. "But I also want the recipe for tansy tea and my crew gets priority to Isle-to-Auradon."

That was more than a fair deal, but she had no idea how they'd pull it off since they had been pitching the idea for allowing younger villain children.

Ben's just going to have to figure out a way, he's in this as much as any of us.

"Fine," and with a handshake the deal was made. It wasn't magically binding as neither were fae and the magic barrier wouldn't allow it, but both were women of their word.

"So, what exactly is the plan?" Uma hoped the witch had something in mind as they walked towards where the limo was stashed to get the remaining payment.

"And who are you?" the daughter of the sea witch asked the boy Jay and Evie hadn't cared about, judging by his face they had meant it.

Before Chad a chance to introduce himself,

"That's just Brad the village idiot. Don't worry about him," Evie responded, she did not need Uma to know there was a prince among them and thankful Tremaine's treatment of him made him unrecognizable. "You all will do what you do best, start chaos as a distraction while Jay and I get Ben," Evie explained, it was a simple enough plan which was all they needed.

"And what happens to us when all is said and done, and Tremaine complains to Maleficent that we attacked a brothel unprovoked?"

"You'll be wearing disguises, no one is going to know your crew had a hand in this."

"Even if we wear disguises, they're going to want to know who did this and start asking questions."

"Tremaine isn't going to survive this, so don't worry about her asking questions."

There was a cold finality in Evie's tone that stopped Uma from asking anything further. She only laughed under her breath, thinking it was amusing that most feared Mal and ignored Evie. The witch was a pretty flower but had poisonous thorns that no one saw until it was too late.

They got to the limo and retrieved the supplies. Uma, Harry, and Gil's eyes widened at the bounty and had never seen so much food in once place before. They were also excited about the amount of clothes they had brought with them. The pirate leader thought the deal was well worth it as it would feed her crew well for the next several months if they rationed smartly, and would probably not lose anyone to the cold. The clothes would help them through the winter, and the swords would come in handy. Only a few of her crew would get them and have them sharpened, the rest would be melted down and the metal sold for more food or other items they would need.

The group gathered in the Sea Three's lair within the fishing vessel, only her most trusted lieutenants were in attendance.

Gonzo, Bonny, Desiree, and Jonas were all completely human and children of henchmen. They had been orphaned early on and they all found their way into Uma's crew by being loyal and capable. They were drawn to Uma's tenacity and she was one of the few their age who could have their own gang against Maleficent and the brothels.

They were surprised they would be helping Evie and Jay, the two being well known friends of Mal. But they trusted their captain and would fall in line, they trusted Uma to not lead them astray. Their trust was confirmed when Uma placed swords in their hands.

The crew was impressed as the weapons were well forged and balanced, the only drawback being they were not sharpened.

"Don't get too attached, we can't use them for a while yet after tonight," Uma warned them. "It would be too suspicious for a brothel to be attacked and we show soon after with swords.

"What's the job?" Bonny asked while still admiring her weapon. She figured that whatever it was, they didn't want to be implicated which was rare as gangs thrived off intimidation.

"This doesn't need to be a complicated plan. Distract Tremaine and her goons, get Ben out without him getting hurt," Evie explained.

"That's easy for you to say, you get to leave and not worry about what happens. We have to live here, what if Maleficent starts asking questions?" Uma asked again. "Tremaine might be out of the way, but Maleficent isn't just going to ignore a brothel, even a rival brothel of Fleur's, being attacked. It's loss revenue, it's not something anyone can sweep under the rug.

"Your gang has never had an issue with the brothels, no one is going to suspect you. I doubt any remaining henchmen of Tremaine is going to admit she held a royal hostage. They especially wouldn't want Maleficent to find out, they'd have to admit they had a potential way to get off the Isle and didn't include her. They'll all probably brush it off to brothel competition. I wouldn't doubt my mother would take credit just to take credit or at least imply it, and she gets any whore and customers when Gemma's is gone. Maleficent isn't going to care about two fighting whore houses. The revenue will be made up by Fluer's expansion, and it is fewer henchmen to oppose either Maleficent or my mother. They'll be better off."

"That's true," Uma felt better about the plan and agreeing to help out. "Plus Tremaine has been seeing a lot of more customer's lately, she's been adamant about keeping away from Maleficent and Ravenna's watchful eyes, if they look too close at her whores then they'll find your doppelgängers."

"Pardon?" Evie abruptly stopped and turned to face Uma, hoping she didn't hear what she thought she heard.

Uma merely grinned evilly with Harry chuckling behind her.

"Oh, I guess it's a better kept secret than I thought. Gemma's has seen a boost in customer's since they started showing off whores who look like you two and the others."

That was certainly...news to them, Jay looked worriedly at his girlfriend. While he didn't really care there was a whore pretending to be him, part of him even flattered in a petty and vain way, but he knew Evie would be a different story.

The blue witch wasn't Mal, whose anger was apparent and lit quickly and exploded right when she was offended. Evie, on the other hand, was never allowed to show emotion in front of her mother less she be punished for potentially causing premature wrinkles. Her fury would simmer under the surface, the raging water hidden under the frozen river, and the object of her anger wouldn't know what hit them until it was too late.

Evie's victims never saw her coming.

I can't believe Chad's inability to keep it in his pants will have a body count.

And Jay didn't doubt that Tremaine had signed her own death warrant several times over, if Dizzy wasn't a factor then having a whore look like her would have been enough.

The wheels turned in Evie's head as she processed what Uma told her. Something seemed to have clicked in place as her hard eyes turned to Chad who suddenly found the ground, ceiling, and literally everything else too fascinating to face her.

"We're going to have words Brad when we get back to Auradon," her voice ice cold, using the name he had told her he used before.

He swallowed hard and nodded his head, willing to do anything she wanted as long as she didn't kill him on the spot. From his nervousness, Jay was convinced Chad had gone to Gemma's specifically for these whores, given Ben's affection for Mal.

I may have to kill the Crown Prince

He couldn't believe Ben would be so stupid to go to the Isle for whores, it all made worse that he would sleep with Mal's look-a-like. It was one thing to pine from far away, it was another to endanger himself just to get his cock wet.

Maybe we should just leave them here…

But it was too late for regrets, and he was astute to know that he needed Ben as Crown Prince and future King more than he needed to defend his friends' honor.

Jay wondered if he would have to carry the dead body of the prince as he didn't know if Evie would remain so forgiving, and where they could hide it. He wasn't too keen that the princes might have also paid for the whore that looked like Evie, both would be rich enough to have several whores for the night.

It wouldn't be the first time he had helped Evie hide a dead body, but he had hope that whatever his girlfriend had planned for the boy it wouldn't be actual murder. It'd be smarter for her to kill Chad on the Isle if she were so inclined, so the prince ought to be grateful he'd get away with his life intact.

Chad locked eyes with Jay and instead of being afraid, he had blushed and looked away awkwardly. That wasn't the reaction Jay expected, and he would think more about it later.

"So, what is the plan? How are we going to distract the thugs?" Uma wanted to get down to business. She knew they could simply cause a ruckus, but she would prefer to not put her people in direct danger if they could help it.

"Gemma's has a bar, as all brothels do. We're going to take scraps of cloth," she showed them several torn pieces she had brought with her, "stuff them into the bottles, set the clothes on fire, and then follow your heart with what you want to do with them."

Several of them looked at her askance and head cocked, wondering if they heard right. Whatever they thought Evie's plan was going to be, it wasn't that.

"We don't have time to be subtle," she explained when they all looked like she had lost her mind. "We need to be in and out, shock and awe. I only ask that you keep the fires to the first level while we get Ben out. Then burn it all down for all I care."

It certainly would be a distraction.

"Jay and Brad will be with me, Jay can take care of any thug they have watching Ben."

"Take Gil with ya lass," Harry added. "You're goin' ta need more back up, and you might have ta carry your prince out. Who knows what they have done ta him while he's been waitin' to be rescued."

Chad whimpered when he was brought back to reality. Guilt unfurled heavy in his stomach and he was close to vomiting. He had run like a coward, but he was glad he had been able to get Evie and Jay to come. He only hoped that his plan to spare them both the embarrassment of going to their parents didn't lead Ben to his death.

Either way, I would have had to come back home. There was no way I could have gotten Ben out on my own.

"Have any of you been inside of Gemma's?" Evie whispered to Uma's crew, hoping that at least one of them had and would help them navigate the building.

"Nothin' beyond tha back area when we had business," Harry explained.

Unfortunately, none of them had ever had the resources to afford a whore and therefore none of them had been inside any brothel.

"Do you know where they are hiding Ben?" she turned to Chad.

"I don't, he was in his own room..." he skipped over the part where the Crown Prince was seeing a whore. "And when they took me, I never saw him."

"Do you remember where they were holding you? The building is only so big, they probably kept you in some back room."

"I don't remember...but I can ask," he suddenly remembered something that could help.

"Who could you ask?" Evie was in disbelief that anyone from the Isle outside of their group would help them.

He didn't have time or even know how to fully explain without showing them, but he promised that he'd show them once they got to Gemma's.

As promised, they were hiding in the bushes behind the brothel and Chad snuck to the back door. He left them all puzzled and curious as to what he was going to do.

"Davy," he whispered as loud as he dared and hoped that his furry little friend would be able to hear them. "Davy."

Evie and the rest were frowning at him, still confused as to what he was doing. They were even more confused when a mouse scurried into his awaiting hands and the two looked to be having a conversation.

"Davy will show me the way," the prince smiled, glad to actually be helpful.

"You can speak to animals?" Evie wasn't so sure she would trust Chad's translation of rodent speak.

"I can speak to mice," he made the distinction. "It's not just a princess trait…I got it from my mother," he huffed, defensive and he recalled why he never told anyone when they continued to be mystified.

"Ask him if he knows Dizzy," she didn't care about whatever special talent Chad had that bruised his frail male ego.

"He doesn't know the humans of the brothel by name," Chad responded after a few exchanges with the mouse.

"She's a young girl, she's twelve."

"He says there are a lot of young girls, new ones."

Evie was going to take pleasure in killing Tremaine.

"She has glasses, she's probably been there the longest. She's the madam's granddaughter."

That seemed to have done the trick when Chad said,

"He knows where she sleeps. He says she's the nicest human in the place, she's always mindful of her broom."

Evie's heart lightened, that sounded exactly like something Dizzy would do.

"Tell him to take us to her first."

"Wait, what about…ahhhhh!" Chad whimpered in pain when Evie grabbed his crotch in a vice grip and her perfectly manicured nails dug into the delicate skin.

Every male in attendance winced in unison and even Jay felt sorry for him.

"We're going to save the innocent girl before the idiot Crown Prince who came here for whores."

"Right, right, right, of course…please let go," the prince whimpered, his voice several octaves higher.

Evie obliged and straightened up,

"As I was saying, please keep the fires to the first floor until we get out. Feel free to take anything that catches your fancy."

They were all in agreement, Uma and her crew went first. It didn't take long for them to infiltrate the kitchen. A lone guard had run into them and he had met his end quickly by Harry's hook.

Chad was not prepared for the blood that painted the wall, and he threw up what was left of the alcohol he had imbibed earlier. Everyone around him frowned, wondering what his problem was.

Uma didn't quite believe that he was the "village idiot," but didn't have time to figure it out. She only hoped a better opportunity for her and her crew wasn't staring her in the face.

The prince didn't know how they could all kill so easily, and so quietly. He was starting to see that the rumors of the Isle Four were more true than not.

"Wait," Chad stalled, he knelt down and called another mouse to him.

"What are you doing?" Evie whispered harshly, wishing he had just stayed in the car or in Auradon.

"I'm telling the mice to flee, we're about to burn down their home."

Of all the times Chad had to grow a conscience, it was right in the middle of a rescue mission. She didn't stop him as the mice were helping them, and despite the ruthlessness she was showing she did not actually like to hurt anyone or anything.

It seemed the mice took Chad's advice because as soon as Davy's friends had skittered away to tell the rest, a hoard of mice started to exit the building.

"There'll be plenty o' dead thugs an' the like for them to feast on later," Harry thought he was being helpful, it just made Chad retch more.

They finally got to the bar, and they quickly made a Molotov cocktail for each of them.

Evie said to follow their hearts, Harry's heart took several more bottles and then emptied them all over every couch and splashed liquor on every drape that hung from the walls.

He was more of a light a single match and watch the small line of accelerant burn as it crept to the highly flammable soaked furniture type of guy.

It was Uma who liked to hear the crash of the bottles and the glass breaking.

As they waited in the shadows for people to notice the fire, Gonzo's heart told him to throw the lit bottle on the first unfortunate thug that came down to see what the ruckus was.

"Fire!" he cried out before he went aflame. Several more followed him, more prepared for the attack.

"Who are you?!" a henchmen shouted as he fought the masked attackers. The smoke was getting too thick, his opponents disguised too well, and they didn't bother to answer him; the henchman died without knowing who or why they invaded the brothel. As big and burly as Tremaine's thugs were, they were no match for the quicker intruders who were well equipped with swords.

The blades were not sharp, but they stabbed a man well enough.

Uma, Harry, and the others had the guards well occupied. The whores ran down the stairs and out the burning building; Evie, Jay, Chad, and Gil were ignored so the occupants could get out and save themselves. Chad led the way with Davy sitting tight on his shoulder and squeaked directions to Dizzy's room. Evie hoped that they would meet the young girl as she tried to escape, but they had not seen her as they approached a door at the end of the hall.

They heard Dizzy begging to be let out and pounding the door, Evie realized with a dark rage that the door had been locked from the outside.

No doubt that evil bitch wanted to protect her product for First Night.

"Dizzy, I need you to step away from the door. We're going to bust it open, ok?" Evie didn't want to risk saying who she was in case Tremaine or one of her girls was listening in.

The pre-teen was relieved that someone was actually going to help her, she was afraid she would die stuck in her room after she heard the screams of "fire" and heard everyone running down the hall trying to escape. She had screamed herself horse, hoping someone would remember she was locked in her room.

Dizzy did as she was told and yelled,

"I'm back!"

Jay and Gil took that as their cue to ram into the door as hard as they could with their shoulders. Luckily the door was old and gave away easily.

Dizzy didn't recognize any of them as they still had masks on, she figured they were rival gangs of her mother's brothel and probably had set the fire.

She remembered her grandmother's dire warnings that there would be those who wouldn't want to pay for her virginity and would break in to rape her; it was why she was locked in her room and had guards stand outside her door. She grabbed the butter knife she hid under her pillow and brandished it to her would be captors. She knew she'd probably die that night, but at least she would go out with a fight.

"Dizzy, it's me. Evie," the blue witch pulled down her mask, she no longer cared about not being found out. She only wanted to erase the scared look on Dizzy's face. She was dressed in a simple cotton shift, looking leaner than Evie had remembered.

"Eves," the girl cried in relief, she knew everything would be alright. She dropped the silverware and ran to the witch, crying as she embraced the girl she saw as an elder sister.

"We need to find Ben," Chad felt like an utter ass for breaking up the special moment, but the building was on fire.

"Dizz, do you know where your grandmother would keep important hostages?"

The young girl thought about it, she took a few moments as she was bewildered at the turn of events but did her best to think quickly.

"Probably in one of the rooms in the hidden hallways. She uses them to spy on guests, there are peepholes in every room."

"Eww," Chad felt slightly grossed out that the old woman probably saw his orgasm face before taking him hostage.

Everyone ignored him.

"Do you know how to get to it?"

"Yes, but…" she looked unsure. If her grandmother was still in the building, then she was certain that she would have several henchmen surrounding her. She didn't want to put anyone in danger.

"It'll be fine Dizz, I have Jay and Gil with me. They're the strongest boys on the Isle."

The girl wasn't sure about that, but she trusted Evie.

"My grandmother's room in across the hall. She has a secret entrance there."

The group followed the young girl and Jay easily broke down another door. The madam's room was opulently furnished, even by Auradonian standards. Tremaine clearly used the payments to enrich herself rather than on her girls. At least Ravenna invested in costumes and tansy tea, it was clear why Fleur de Pomme was the better establishment.

Dizzy showed them the hidden door and thankfully the hidden rooms were close by. When they broke in, it looked like Tremaine, her closest bodyguards, and Ben were just about to move. They had placed the Crown Prince in simple Isle clothes and bound his hands. They were attempting to escape with their last hostage. Chad was grateful his friend had not been hurt and he wondered why Tremaine had gone so easy on him.

But he would ask questions later, Gil and Jay were already making quick work of her remaining guards.

Chad went to Ben to free him, Tremaine had stepped in between them, her eyes lit with fury that her plan had literally gone up in flames.

In the tussle, Chad's face covering had slipped off,

"You wretched brat! I should have killed you when I had the chance!"

She moved to attack him again, but she had suddenly stopped. Her breathing became haggard and her mouth opened and closed, as if she were quite sure what to say and confused as to what was happening to her.

Her skin turned ashen and her blood turned black as pitch veins crept up from her throat.

Shocked, Ben and Chad turned their heads to look behind Lady Tremaine and there stood Evie with a dagger dug into the madam's side.

"This dagger is laced with medusa fern sap. The fire you feel in your veins? That's your blood turning to stone. It's what I used on any man who thought they had the right to my body. I think it's rather fitting it's being used on someone who would sell their own granddaughter to the highest bidder," Evie explained vindictively, twisting the knife to make sure Tremaine suffered as much as she could.

Tremaine's eyes widened, it was the only thing she could still move, when she recognized the daughter of Ravenna. Her eyes moved to Dizzy, a desperate plea she couldn't speak to help her.

But Dizzy remained passive, uncaring that her grandmother was dying before her.

Evie removed the dagger and carefully wiped the blood off on Tremaine's clothes and sheathed it back into her hiding place.

"Come on, we need to go," she ordered the others. She grabbed Dizzy's hand, but the girl had moved towards her grandmother. She took the emerald broach that decorated her grandmother's bodice, the last relic Tremaine had from her previous life.

There was a loud crash heard in the distance, they all took that as their cue to get out of the building as soon as they could.

Uma and her crew had done a good job of keeping the fire in one location, the group had exited on the other side of the building. They all had managed to keep their coverings with the exception of Dizzy, Chad, and Ben. None of them would be seen on the Isle ever again, so it didn't matter.

They met up with Uma on the outside,

"Make sure the entire place burns. We need everything to burn."

Uma didn't question Evie and barked her orders at her crew closest to the bar. They threw every bottle they could get their hands on, making sure the flames would spread. All evidence of the struggle would be lost and they were certain any questions anyone had would not be able to be answered.

Once all the bottles were gone, each member of the crew had gone separate ways and would meet back up at Uma's lair.

There had been no casualties, only a few bruises and cuts.

"There's no way we can use the swords," Uma decided when they had gathered back together. "Some of those whores saw us. We're going to have to melt it all down."

If her crew were disappointed, they kept it to themselves.

"How did you remain unharmed?" the sea witch questioned Ben, she was certain they'd at least find him roughed up. He looked tired, but otherwise no worse for wear.

"She asked me to write to my mother the duchesse de la Bibliothèque…and Brad…told me to write to them her demands for my freedom…my cooperation was…appreciated," Ben wasn't sure if he could stand to stick around the Isle any longer, not after what he had witnessed. He hoped they would leave as soon as possible.

He only hoped Amethyst and the others had made it out alright, the whores that worked there were innocent and didn't deserve to die simply because their madam had decided to kidnap some customers.

"At least the prince is smart enough to lie on the spot," Ben saw she did not hold him in high esteem and he didn't blame her. It was a bit unnerving that she knew his true identity. Would she hold him ransom as well?

"What are you going to do about the kid?" Uma turned to Evie, she knew it would be suicide to try to ransom the Crown Prince. The Crown was too powerful, there was no way to force their way off the Isle with Ben.

Dizzy held on tighter to her friend, scared to be anywhere but where she was. She feared she would be left on the Isle, snatched up by another brothel to be sold. She had skills with needle and thread, but that occupation was not in high demand.

"She's coming with us," and Evie didn't expound upon that.

Uma relaxed, happy that they didn't expect her to take Dizzy into her crew. She didn't want any ties between the attack tonight and her gang.

The young girl cried in relief and hugged her again, she never dreamed she would be saved.

Evie stared hard at Chad and Ben, daring them to argue but both were smart enough not to.

"These are beets," Evie showed Uma an example of the produce they brought. "It'll stain anything red or pink. The onion skins can turn things light orange. I suggest you dye every scrap of clothing you all wore tonight, or burn it."

Like everyone on the Isle, every resource was precious and could not be wasted. They would not dispose of any valuable cloth so they would dye the fabric and only wear them around the lair for good measure.

Evie and the others started to leave to head back to Auradon, everyone eager to get back.

"Remember our deal," Uma reminded the blue witch.

Evie nodded grimly, she would not forget who had helped her in her time of need.

They had left and exhaustion overtook Uma, the adrenaline had worn off and all she was left with was dread and doubt.

She stood at the entrance of her lair, watching the others walk out of sight and the sun started to peek on the horizon.

"Did I do the right thing?" she asked Harry softly as he came behind her and wrapped his arms around her. They had been so careful, but everything had happened so quickly and it would be easy to overlook a detail. All it would take was one witness to point a finger their way, there was never much need for definitive proof on the Isle. If Maleficent decided they were guilty, then they were living on limited time.

"You did what you thought was best for the crew, tha's all you can ever do," he assured her, squeezing her gently and kissing her tenderly on her temple. She leaned into him, taking comfort in his arms. Only time would tell if she had made a mistake, but no one could fault her for doing all she could to make sure she and those loyalty to her survived.

The ride back to Auradon was done in silence, Chad felt like he could sleep for 100 years but there was still so much he had to figure out.

One would be how to explain why he looked so beat up. Then there was the problem of the pre-teen Evie brought back with them. The girl kept silent, she only stared at the jewel in her hand while in other held onto Evie. Most kids would be excited to be in their first limo, but it seemed Dizzy did not notice.

Just when he thought he had solved his problems, several more popped up.

They made it back to Auradon Prep easily enough, he had never been more grateful to be a prince. He wasn't just sneaking about causing mischief. He had actually committed a crime, several in fact, and his entire life could be ruined.

They were gathered in Ben's suite, Evie gently laid the girl down on a couch and covered her with a blanket Ben provided from his linen closet. He had never seen Evie be so gentle and it warred with the memory of the girl who had stabbed an old woman.

After the girl had fallen asleep, they moved to another room to discuss what happened.

Jay stood against the wall, eyes on the door in case someone would come in.

Ben and Chad sat on ornate chairs, while Evie paced around like a restless lioness.

Their first instinct was to stand back up, as it was against etiquette to sit while a lady stood but they had both felt they were about to be reprimanded.

"A lot of people died tonight, people who didn't have to die," she started.

"I'm so…" Ben wanted to apologize but Evie wasn't having it.

"You do not get to talk!" she yelled at him. She remembered that Dizzy was asleep in the other room so she kept her voice down. "You went to the Isle for whores," she was now talking to them both, "got kidnapped, and because you never take responsibility for anything, we were blackmailed into helping because you couldn't face the consequences."

Ben turned to Chad to confirm what she said was true, he couldn't deny it and he looked shamefully down at the carpet.

"You had us risk our lives to save your sorry asses, and literally the only thing keeping me from taking everything of value in here and extorting you within a farthing of your trust fund is the fact that you're going to help Dizzy. I don't care what it takes, who you have to bribe, or what you have to do. But you're going to make a place for her here. A safe place. And you're going to give her, her own trust fund. One that would rival a legitimately born princess' dowry."

When they didn't argue, Evie continued,

"Next, we are sending birth control and medical aid to the Isle. Condoms, the pill, Doctor's Without Borders. We are going to take care of some immediate problems, not keep blithering on with meeting after meeting. And if it comes from the personal purse, well too bad. Chad, guess what passion project you're suddenly going to start and donate a sizable contribution?"

He still was too afraid to speak, so he nodded his agreement.

"Good. And you're also going to start to come to Isle-to-Auradon meetings. You'll use your money and status for actual good for a change."

Chad was at least self-aware enough to know it was the least he could do.

"Well," the anger had started to taper off, and she was left with nothing but derision. "I hope it was worth it."

"It will be when we get definitive proof that lords and guards visit the Isle illegally."

Evie, Jay, and Chad had all turned to look at Ben, startled by his statement.

"I'm sorry that you had to come and save me, and I'll be eternally grateful. But I needed to see for myself…"

"Oh, you 'needed' to see for yourself," Ben didn't realize how sarcastic Evie could be.

"So, you're saying you didn't go for whores?" she refrained from rolling her eyes as it sounded like back peddling to her, but a little nagging voice in the back of her mind told her that it wasn't like Ben to go for whores.

Another part of her remembered all the powerful men that passed through Fleur's, she bet they all had the shroud of the "respectable family man," and no one suspected they went to prostitutes.

She didn't know if she cared if Ben was simply another man or if she wanted him to be better than that.

"I didn't. You don't have to believe me, I wouldn't blame you. I know I have to work to gain your trust again. But Isle-to-Auradon is in trouble, my rule is being questioned at every turn, Mal was attacked…I saw it as an opportunity to use this information to my advantage."

"You were going to blackmail me?" Chad was slightly hurt to be used in such a way. He wasn't surprised by Evie's demands, but he had invited Ben to help him relax. It was why they went to Gemma's in the first place.

"No, I wouldn't have blackmailed you," Ben tried to differentiate his plan and turned to his friend to try to explain himself.

"But you were going to blackmail the lords and guards of Charmington and Cinderellaburg."

"I was going to blackmail whoever happened to be there. Whether or not they're from your lands or others was irrelevant."

"How can it be irrelevant? These are my people, it's my Uncle…" he stopped when he remembered that Evie and Jay were present.

"They're people breaking the law and taking advantage of impoverished women while at the same time, spouting all this hypocritical vitriol about how the villains don't deserve any help because they broke the law. They weren't going to get into any real trouble, I have no doubt they'd rather get in line than risk their positions and reputations."

"But they'll know you found out because of me, that I brought you there."

"So just tell them you're being blackmailed too, this isn't rocket science Chad," Evie got impatient with Chad's melodramatic fit.

Both princes looked at Evie, glad she was able to find a simple and quick way to ameliorate the issue of Chad getting backlash from his people.

"Oh, so I'd be like a double agent?" Chad liked that idea.

"You're an idiot, you're both idiots," Evie couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"My plan…"

"Was completely ill thought out. If you had come to us—you know, the ones who actually lived on the Isle—we would have made it abundantly clear that you going yourself was the worst thing you could have come up with. You're the Crown Prince, not some idiot lesser royal where someone could easily take their place."

Evie really knew how to hurt Chad's feelings.

"Any loyal guard with a…thing, camera thing…the one you use for sports."

"GoPro," Jay input helpfully.

"GoPro—thank you—, and you would have had all the proof you need. Hells, I could have given you a list. From Auradon City there's Alençon, Orléans, Anjou, Berry, Burgundy. How about Aurorian? Carolingians, Ottonians, Salians, Hapsburg, Summers. What? You want Westerly? De la Gardie, Brahe, Torstensson, Gyllenborg. Let's not forget the most loyal customers, the Charmingtons and Cinderellaburg nobles: Howards, Stuart, Brandon, and York."

Chad started to turn green, nausea building in his throat as noble and loyal houses were listed and probably going to be blackmailed. He couldn't protect them from whatever Ben wanted to do, and if Evie were so inclined she could bring ruin to dynasties.

"And in case you forgot, your father—the King who banished those villains and suppressed magic damn near everywhere—is your father. What exactly did you think he would do if you got hurt or even worse, killed? There are literally memorial graveyards in four of your eighteen kingdoms dedicated to victims of villains still alive on the Isle. There is a reason Maleficent and my mother are the two most powerful villains and it is not because they had the best outfits. They rule a lawless island and have a body count a mile long, and this is when they don't have magic. You're so convinced you're the hero that you don't think anything through and count on some magical deus ex machina to save your ass. Well guess what, you used your one miracle with us. Thanks for getting us off the Isle, but I'm not going to endanger myself or anyone I love again to save you from your savior complex."

Evie ranted for what seemed forever, every idiotic choice Ben had made so far laid bare. He wished he could deny it, to defend himself and say all he did was for their good. A dark twisted voice in his said to yell back, to remind her she was where she was today because of him.

If not for him, she could very well have been one of those whores.

But the bigger part of Ben, the good part that would never hold a good deed as emotional collateral kept him quiet. He knew she was right, it was foolish of him to go. He should have brought guards with him. He was certain there would be a few that could have been paid handsomely enough to escort him to the Isle. Even one of Chad's guards would have sufficed. Or the hidden camera, observe from a safe distance.

"You're right, it was dumb of me to go myself. I'll never be able to repay you for saving me. But I plan to make good on my promise of Isle-to-Auradon. We have Chad's support, but we need more. You help me identify every high and mid Auradonian noble, particularly the ones in the House of Lords and House of Royals, that goes to the Isle and we'll make them see things our way."

Evie wished he would have fought back a little more, anger and adrenaline still coursed through her blood and she wanted a fight. But there was a darkness to Ben's demeanor, something she never thought she'd ever seen in the golden Prince.

Under the light, she swore she saw a molten gold sheen to his eyes, but it was his resolve that bridled her tongue. He was tired of playing fair and was ready to do what needed to be done.

She could stay mad, it wasn't like she needed his permission or even his cooperation to keep laying it into him. But she remembered the young girl sleeping in the room adjacent, safe for now. Anyone pushed enough, even the Good Prince Ben, could snap and she'd rather have his focus on Isle-to-Auradon rather than to appease her need to get her anger out.

"I can give you plenty of names, I'll even tell you which ones have Isle bastards."

Ben's eyes turned just a touch more gold,

"Perfect."

What have I done?

Chad's stomach started to fall when his best friend, the blue witch, and former thief all grinned like the Cheshire cat that ate the canary.

P.H. was back at Hell Hall, he sat at an oak desk in the library and looked over all the research Malevola had gathered in their search for Carlos' origins.

The reports from the scholars from various universities were the scant academic papers on faery and magical creature biology, others were summaries of ancient esoteric mythos surrounding the origins of faeries and magic. Nothing that could give them a definite or even an educated guess as to what Carlos could be.

Then there were the reports from Malevola's unsavory new endeavor, her monopoly on gossip rags, and even some legitimate news outlets. While vile and without scruples, her paparazzi and private investigators were able to get dirt on anyone for enough coin.

And there was no shortage of dirt.

"How were they able to get in and out of the Isle?" he asked outloud, bewildered to read reconnaissance on villains and henchmen who had been on the Isle since its inception. The investigators had somehow infiltrated the Isle as newly banished villains, gathered intelligence by asking Isle citizens what they knew about Cruella.

His breathing hitched and he willed tears to not fall as he read that Cruella had been too disoriented to glean anything useful. It hurt his heart to read that she had been filthy, disheveled, and had fits of anger and delusional to the point of speaking to a stuffed dog toy sewn onto her coat.

These were much different than the reports that Cecil had shown them over the years that claimed she was in relatively good health from the Department of Isle Affairs.

The last he had seen Cruella before her banishment, she had been impeccably dressed with a white mink fur coat so large it made her look as big as a linebacker, she had designed it herself and her taste ran larger than life. She had always been a petite woman, but she refused to be small and lived life loudly. Her fashion empire and investments had kept the family afloat while they recovered from her scandal. It was hard to think she had fallen so far, with no help that she obviously needed.

His nails dug into the wood, leaving scratch marks that would alarm the maids later when they cleaned.

There were few citizens left from the original cohort of exiles, most had died either by Maleficent's hand during her blitz to consolidate her power, by disease or starvation, or by a malevolent entity that no one had a name for. Those that remained, only recalled in depth of an attack on Cruella that preceded nine months before Carlos' birth.

Fisher de Vil had brought his wife to the only exiled doctor after being attacked. P.H. stopped reading as he couldn't stomach to read in depth the horror Cruella had endured.

P.H. couldn't help the tears that fell, his lip trembled, and he took deep breaths to try to control the attack of emotions.

Some part of him knew that it was always a possibility. Rape happened in Auradon, it was certain to happen where there was no law and therefore less deterrent. He thought the best-case scenario would be that his cousin had simply had an affair when it was apparent Carlos was not Fisher's child. But there it was, in neat, stark print and only a few paragraphs long. His worst fears had been realized and there was nothing he could do but sit in impotent rage.

He couldn't read by himself any longer, he gathered the reports and stalked out of the room to find his aunt.

It was a regular occurrence to find Malevola in her drawing room, sitting in her high-backed chair with a tumbler filled with bourbon. He decided not to ask about the decanter that had been thrown against the silk covered wall, he assumed she had read the same reports and was brooding, the maids too scared to approach their mistress. He didn't blame them, if Malevola was angry enough to irreparably stain a priceless and irreplaceable wall covering from the early 1900's, then she was probably also close to murder.

His aunt was focused on the television, the channel set to a prestigious news channel that had won several awards for journalism. The news cycle for the past few weeks had been dominated by the attack on Mal Lefay, Carlos' girlfriend and a fae under the Crown's protection.

"I didn't think we had any ownership in this news station," he started off, not sure where to even begin.

"We don't, I was owed a favor. They didn't have to do much, they ran the story once and it caught on like fire. The gossip rags take care of smearing their name in a more visceral manner, those despicable boys have plenty of social media posts of racist anti-fae vitriol. The Crown Prince's own condemnation put the final nail in the coffin," she spoke of the boys who had attacked the fae girl. "This wasn't just a prank, she had nearly died. The magical population has been rightfully angry. They're calling for exile to the Isle."

P.H. wasn't surprised, that was the general punishment for such high crimes. It was just jarring to think about as the two in question were not out of school and just only eighteen if he recalled correctly.

"They would banish children still in school?" it was one thing to ignore children born on the Isle, it was another to send them there. Even if they were legally an adult, they had not experienced life in any real sense.

"They're old enough to know better and why not? Cruella's crimes had always paled in comparison to anyone else that was sent to the Isle, and she was sent there without a second thought and barely a trial."

P.H. couldn't argue with that.

"I'm surprised you're working so hard to get justice on the girl's behalf."

"She and the others protected him, gave him friendship and comfort. He loves her. It's the least we could do."

Again, P.H. couldn't argue and whatever empathy he might have felt for the boys' younger age didn't linger.

"The universities haven't revealed anything substantive," he gave his opinion, and laid the research down with other piles of reports Malevola had gathered.

She merely nodded as she accepted his opinion and rested her chin in her hand as she thought of how to proceed, her attention still half on the news.

P.H. went through the pile of new reports, some were academic, and others were dossiers of citizens of Auradon.

"Do I want to know why we have reports on staff from Sherwood?" he recognized the names.

"Do you know what plausible deniability is?"

All he could do is stare at his aunt and internally debated if he wanted to press for more information. He decided whatever she was up to, she could handle it.

There was one report that was particularly thin, with their vast network of investigators and paparazzi it seemed odd that there would be so little on a person.

"Who is Peter Huntsman?"

"He's the Administrator for the Department of Isle Affairs, a former Rounder; the most prolific and decorated one if the reports are correct. I doubt there's anyone else with as much knowledge of villains and henchmen sent to the Isle. His work address is in the report. I don't trust anyone but you to talk to him. Whatever his price to talk, give it to him if the information is genuine. Offer him a new life…"

"Yes, I know how to bribe people. I work in academia; how else do you think I get funding?"

Malevola rolled her eyes and ignored his smart remark. She wouldn't trust one of her investigators with such sensitive information, and she felt it in her bones they were on the verge of finding out Carlos' sire. Her instincts told her that whatever Huntsman had to say, the information should only remain in the family.

P.H. nodded, plans already forming in his head. Out of the corner of his eye, a report buried under the others with the name obscured,

Ceci…

As he reached for it to get a better look, Malevola gathered the pile and put it out of his reach.

"That's nothing you need to worry about nephew," she simply said, and it was as good as a dismissal.

"Plausible deniability?"

"You've always been the smart one."

"I'll let you know what I find out."

With that, he left her to her own devices, and he went to find out what Peter Huntsman knew.

With a few more days to prepare, P.H. found himself in front of the Department of Isle Affairs.

P.H. surveyed the rundown building, it was a plain square office park with no distinctive architecture other than how completely squat and beige it was. Most government buildings were fashioned in art deco and had the Bourbon Lion heraldry sculpted to anything that stood still. The Hall of Justice was a towering citadel with quotes of famous Justices, the Palace of Laws that housed the House of Commons and House of Lords was a monument made of glistening white marble and Grecian columns.

The Department of Isle Affairs was a hovel in the outskirts of the city, and if P.H. didn't know better, he would have thought it condemned and abandoned.

In any other government building, he would have been required to walk up to a security desk from a specified guest entrance. He had been prepared with a well thought out made-up excuse and expensive false identification to back up his claims. He then would have slinked away to hidden hallways and stairways until he got to Peter Huntsman. With this building, there was only one entrance and there was no one to stop him from just walking in. The fluorescent lights flickered and barely had any life left, and from the film of dust on everything it looked like the maintenance crew only came by once a month.

He passed what looked to be a security office stood dark and empty, security cameras remained unseeing.

He went to the elevator bay, but none of them worked. He walked further down the hall, everything dark until he tripped up the motion detector to turn on the lights, and noticed none of the cubicles or offices where occupied. P.H. listened for any evidence that there was someone beside himself in the building.

He heard the faint tune of a television show he couldn't quite name and followed it to a large corner office. The government blue carpet absorbed any sound of P.H. coming, and the door was ajar. He looked into the office without moving the door any further, and he saw a man in a grey business suit staring at a portable television. The desk was worn, cheap, and probably purchased twenty years ago, when the Isle had been created and nothing in the building had been updated since.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that the Department of Isle Affairs was a farce, the building was literally empty except for one "employee," and the man in the office was supposedly the head of an entire government agency. It explained how Malevola had gotten spies so easily into the Isle.

"How has there never been an escape?" he wondered under his breath.

Or perhaps there have been, we just never knew and the Crown kept it quiet.

Either way, it would be easy enough to get the information he wanted. Nothing loosened lips like threatening to whistle blow.

P.H. waltzed into the office as if he had an appointment, the man in the suit nearly choked on the sandwich he had been snacking on.

Clearly he never expected to have a guest.

"Administrator Huntsman?" P.H. asked as if the man could be anyone else.

Peter Huntsman had been the head of The Department of Isle Affairs since the aforementioned Isle's inception. Before they had won the Fae Wars and unified under one crown, he was the best hunter of the supernatural. As they developed the island prison, they had tasked him and others to round up every villain in the land, this naturally included any malevolent magical being.

What constituted as "malevolent" was up to his loose interpretation.

Consolidating power never went smoothly and secrets needed to be kept. He was more than willing to keep those secrets with a well-paying prestigious position. It was made all the easier when he didn't actually need to do much. Eventually he didn't even technically need to come in, but he had gotten used to getting up and going someplace.

In the past 15 years no one had ever come to his office. The man before him was in a bespoke suit probably worth more than his yearly salary, with a large leather briefcase that again cost more than he made in a month. He was bald but had a fashionably trimmed beard, the distinctive white and black hair along with the different coloured eyebrows named him a de Vil.

Nerves started to tense into stomach as the long-buried secrets started to creep back into the light.

"Who wants to know?" Peter decided to play it cool and dumb.

"Dr. P.H. de Vil," the man introduced himself. "And you're Peter Huntsman VIII, Administrator of the Department of Isle Affairs."

The last part P.H. had a hard time keeping a straight face, as they were in an all but abandoned building.

"What do you want Mr…"

"Dr."

Huntsman didn't appreciate being corrected, but powered through,

"Dr. de Vil, what do you want?"

"I want information."

Huntsman's silence prompted P.H. to keep going.

"Twenty years ago, right when the Isle was created but not yet fully populated; you were hired by the Crown to round up all of the villains, sidekicks…and lets say all of the interesting people."

Huntsman still remained stoic, unsure where he was going with this.

"You and the other 'Rounders,' had free reign to traverse the newly unified kingdoms of Auradon. Some of these villains and creatures caught were rather famous: Ratcliff, Dr. Facilier, Ursula, Madam Medusa, the Horned King, and the list goes on. You were the most decorated Rounder for the Crown. Our King Adam was so grateful that he made you head of the newly created Department of Isle Affairs."

"Is there a point to this? All of this is common knowledge."

P.H. made an exaggerated point to look around at the mostly dark office, and behind him at the empty hallway with empty offices and cubicles,

"I'm sorry, am I keeping you from an important meeting?"

The Administrator was not amused and P.H. went on,

"What's not common knowledge is exactly who or what else was banished to the Isle. While the more famous exiles were paraded on television and celebrated ad nauseum and in my own opinion in rather poor taste, there was never a certified census taken. Coincidently, there was a record number of missing persons that year as well."

Although it was dim but for the light from the television, P.H. saw Peter swallowed hard and pale just slightly.

P.H. made himself at home and plopped into a guest chair that sat in from of Peter's desk. Twenty years of dust rustled up and he frowned, disappointed at the filth.

"And I won't bore you with exactly how I came across this information as I think you have quite a good idea of how easy it is to come and go to the Isle," P.H. went on and again Peter lost a bit more colour, "but there are several stories of a particularly nasty creature that plagued the Isle in the first few years. I want to know what it was."

While P.H. sardonically retold the history of the Isle and the Department of Isle Affairs, Peter's heart pounded in his chest and he hoped the other man couldn't hear. He tried to think of an excuse, any excuse to explain away the empty building and everything else.

But nothing came to him, he never thought anyone would care enough to check in on him. There was no oversight and that was not by accident. He knew that other kingdoms, Charmington in particular, enjoyed having free access to the Isle and his discretion. The bonus in his paycheck was proof of that. No one asked questions, and he didn't bother to come up with any answers. The first few years they had made a real go of having an actual agency. But then the House of Lords and Royals kept cutting the budget. Clearly the government and citizens of Auradon had no interest in paying any more than they absolutely had to when it came to running the Isle. Eventually the money was cut down to only him with absolutely no help going to the Isle other than whatever was donated, which were mainly castoffs and rotten food. The only reason grocers and farmers even bothered to give food was for a tax write off.

Even with the charitable donations, that was taken care of by independent charity organizations.

When Peter thought his agency was redundant and he would be let go, the King said he was still "needed" and to keep showing up to work.

Huntsman didn't question it much when he got a six-figure paycheck and didn't have to do anything. So, he obeyed and kept showing up.

But then he had a man from one of the richest families in all of Auradon asking him questions and he didn't know how to answer him.

He eyed the letter opener that had been decoration the past 15 years and wondered if he should use his hunting skills.

P.H. followed Huntsman's line of sight and rolled his eyes,

People are so quick to violence.

"I think you know that's a bad idea. Me, very wealthy and people will care that I'm missing. You, forgotten war hero past his prime and maybe considered upper middle class. And then there is the fact that my family does know I'm here and why. Do we really want to add murder to the long list of malfeasance here?"

Huntsman's shoulders dropped and knew it was not the right avenue to venture, so he tried another,

"The King…"

"Has so much more to lose than you, do you really think he'd let you drag him down? There are so many people you're supposed to report to, and then they report to someone else, before it would even reach the King's ear? As my family is fond of saying, do you know what plausible deniability is?"

Peter said nothing, the wheels turned in his head as he tried to think of ways to implicate anyone other than himself. The plans to exonerate himself were not forthcoming.

"Listen, I'm not an unreasonable man. I just want answers, for myself and no one else. I have no intention of having this be another scandal for the Bourbons," of course that solely depended on what Huntsman had to say, but he didn't need to know that. "So here's the deal, you give me all the information I want and then you choose where you want to 'retire' and the de Vils will provide you with a house and lets say a pension of 100% of what your pay currently is. It can be anywhere, say Maldovia, Avalor, or Enchancia. Somewhere warm and beyond Auradon's jurisdiction and absolutely no extradition agreements should anything…unseemly come to light."

Peter didn't look 100% convinced, so P.H. had an alternate plan,

"Or you could do nothing, hope you can get away before I put in a FOIA request…you know what FOIA is, right? The Freedom of Information Act? I'm sure your Office of General Counsel will know," P.H. paused to laugh at his own joke. "When I inevitably do not get an answer, I call in all the newspapers and magazines my family owns…which is all of them basically, and then there is this inquiry and it's this whole thing with you running away, do you have anything saved up? Or did you spend all of your money on…" he rustles through the papers he brought with him from out of his jacket breast pocket, "…various pyramid schemes – hmm, I did not take you for an essential oils guy – but that just means you're broke. Hmmm, no money and nowhere to go? That's not a good combination."

"It's network marketing…pyramid schemes are illegal," Huntsman tried to pathetically defend his monetary choices and how he lost most of the money he made in an attempt to become wealthier.

"So is taking a paycheck for a job you're not doing and falsifying official government records, but you still did all of that and here we are. A poor criminal in Auradon? They don't really last long, do they? So, you're looking at life on the run or jail…maybe even banishment to the Isle…or you could have an even easier life somewhere tropical?" P.H. conveyed the two choices in both hands and bobbed them up and down as if he were a scale.

"How do I know you're not like every other rich asshole in Auradon? You promise the world and to have my back, but turn on me as soon as we get caught?"

"Glad to know you've learned your lesson, well lets see…here is some money to start you off," P.H. plopped two stacks of fresh and crisp 500 franc notes on the desk that he took from his briefcase.

Peter's eyes bugged out at seeing so much money at once.

"This isn't enough to start a new life."

"Of course not, cash is much too suspicious and bulky. This is just to show that I'm serious. The real money will be transferred to the bank account of your choice," he then handed over his tablet that he took from his case, to show the account with the money was ready and all Peter had to do was put in his banking information.

"Then you also sign a few contracts stating that you won some made up contest we've cooked up by some shell corporation and then another stating you are an 'independent contractor' for de Vil Industries, in our field office for wherever you end up. You could start your whole new life within a week. So, Mr. Huntsman, are you willing to talk?" P.H. asked as he entwined his hands and sat back into the chair.

Peter eyed the money, and while it wasn't enough to start a whole new comfortable life it was enough to at least get out of town and lay low for a while. He couldn't count on the Crown for protection, but he still had plenty of friends from back in his Rounders days.

"So, you want to know about the creature I caught, the one that terrorized the Isle?"

"Yes, what was it and where is it?"

Before Peter could delve into that story, he reached into a drawer in his desk and pulled out a cheap bottle of scotch and a couple of tumblers.

"Drink?"

"No, thank you."

Peter shrugged and helped himself to four fingers and took a deep sip.

"This creature, my family has been fighting it for generations, all the way back to Peter I. No one knows for sure what he is or his true name. Some think he's the manifestation of the cruelty of nature, the predator that hunts the prey and the fight for survival from birth until death. My own family claims to be direct descendants of Orion, the Hunter and is his natural foe. Others say he's the last remnant of the Intelligent Animals who got a taste for human blood and flesh, that cursed him to immortality and an unending hunger. Some whisper he's the son of the North Wind, the god Boreas. All stories passed down that no one questions, and no one knows who started it or what's the truth."

"And what do you think?"

"I think there's a little bit of truth in all of it. Stories have to come from somewhere, don't they? There are records of him back when Intelligent Animals still roamed Auradon and the Pigs were starting to teach Man how to build. I know my great, great, great whatever grandfather fought it back in Russia, when it was still called Russia, before Unification. Then a not as great great Uncle fought him again centuries later, to save a girl and her grandmother in the woods. No one knows his name…but the tales call him the Big Bad Wolf."

Perhaps P.H. would have that drink. He had known whatever creature it was had to be dark and particularly villainous, but the Big Bad Wolf? He was a creature so old that details of him have been lost to time and people still feared him. Even to that day children were warned to not enter into the woods precariously and with good reason.

"What happened? You caught him, he was too dangerous and killing people, then you took him where?"

Peter snorted, the drink addling his tact,

"The King doesn't give a shit about the villains. The Wolf was there for…four or five years before we took him out. He killed plenty in his time there, and that was when this Department was actually legitimate and functioning. We knew what was going on, the Crown didn't care until the Wolf started to weaken the barrier. He huffed and puffed and you know how it goes," Peter finished his first glass and poured himself another.

"Shit."

"Indeed. You can see why the Crown covered this up."

"Who else knows?"

"I don't know for sure, but the ones who were there when I subdued the Wolf, were King Adam, Nadine Féemarraine…"

"Doctor."

"What?"

"Doctor. Dr. Nadine Féemarraine…come on, she might be part of some shady government cover up but she's earned three MagDs. She deserves to be called Doctor."

Peter rolled his eyes but decided he needed to make his new "employer" happy and obliged,

"Dr. Féemarraine, and Snow White."

"Snow White?"

"Yes, the queen of Charmington…there was a whole story about her. She stayed with seven dwarves…"

"Yes, I know who queen Snow White is…just why was she there? I've never heard of any involvement with her…other than the banishment of her stepmother. Otherwise she's been pretty lowkey for the last twenty years."

Peter shrugged, his movements slightly staggered with his intoxication.

"I don't know why she was there, and I was used to not asking questions. I subdued the Wolf, they were there, I left and then…I just lived my life."

"How were you able to subdue him? This is a…" words failed P.H. as this was an entity beyond anything he had ever dealt with, "…a primordial force of Nature."

"Everything has a weakness, basic law of Nature. For whatever reason the Wolf's weakness is my family. Maybe there is something to the story of my family being descendants of Orion. But I have the original musket my grandfather used and the hatchet my Uncle used, both…both are powerful artefacts. They work to hurt the Wolf more than any modern weapon, but they do not kill him. He always recovers and always comes back."

P.H. took a moment to digest the information and wondered what it meant for Carlos.

He needs to be told immediately, screw Cecil. If he can't get a meeting with the boy then I'll do it on my own.

"So, the only weakness for the Wolf is your family…and you're the last one…what's the Crown going to do if he comes back and you're in another country?"

"What do I care?"

"That answer doesn't surprise me."

Peter let the insult roll off of him, he didn't get as far as he did with caring about scruples.

For a huntsman, Peter didn't have very good instincts or reflexes. Or perhaps it was his age and the alcohol, but he didn't see P.H. take out a pistol with a silencer out from his coat and the last thing he knew was a sip of scotch and then nothing.

P.H. had a feeling he would have to kill that day, it was always best to be prepared.

"I hope you don't take this personally," P.H. said to Peter as his blood oozed out onto the desk and fell to the carpet. He gathered the cash and started to wipe down anything that might have had his fingerprints on it such as the chair. "But we can't have anyone with knowledge or ability to hurt my family. I'm sure you would have also put two and two together eventually and would have sold that information to the highest bidder or tried to extort us. Or worse, would have gone after him. You might not be able to kill the Wolf, but Carlos is half human. I won't take that chance."

Peter didn't respond to such an accusation and he never would.

P.H. pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed,

"I need a clean-up crew at the Department of Isle Affairs, I also need to swing by Huntsman's house and pick up a few things. I'll update you as soon as I get home."

The person on the other end didn't answer, but P.H. knew the wheels were in motion.

He sighed at the cooling body of Peter Huntsman, thankful that he and the Crown made it easy to get rid of him.

Empty building, no witnesses and no proof I was ever here. They basically rolled out the red carpet to be assassinated.

"I failed you Cruella, I won't fail Carlos," he promised to the wind and the unsure future that lay ahead.

And now we know who Carlos' Sire is! Was it who you thought it was? Thanks for reading!