Did I Mention

She would never admit it, but Una was impressed by how quickly Mal came up with a new plan to get the wand. This one even had a backup plan. And getting the Fairy Godmother's daughter to steal the wand for them? That was absolutely wicked.

"If Jane doesn't take the wand before the coronation, I'll be able to take it then," Mal said.

"How?" Una asked.

"The front row is reserved for Ben, his parents, some visiting royals and his girlfriend," Jay explained. "Mal has a love spell."

A smile crept across Una's face. This was going to be fun.

First, they had to prepare the love spell. According to Lanlei, students had access to three communal kitchens until an hour before curfew. Mal chose the one furthest from the dorm rooms and they started gathering ingredients. Between Evie's stocks and the pantry they had all the herbs they needed. The pantry also provided the neutral base, which was mostly flour and water.

"Now we need one tear of human sadness," Mal read. "Carlos, you're the only human here."

"I can't cry on command," Carlos said.

"I could hit you," Jay offered. "And slice some onions."

"That won't work," Evie said. "Well, hitting him might, but crying because of onions is different from crying because of emotion. The tears have different enzymes."

Jay raised a fist and Carlos backed away.

"I stopped crying about getting hit years ago," Carlos said. "What else can we try?"

Una held up one of the knives she'd found in a block of wood on the countertop.

"We're not stabbing anyone," Jay said.

Una pouted. "Little bit?"

"No," Jay said.

Jay took the knife from Una and she didn't bother to fight him on it. Mal would never have let her make one of her people bleed anyway.

"Try thinking about something sad," Mal said.

Carlos's face screwed up in concentration. The rest of them waited. After a long moment (that wasn't actually that long), Carlos shook his head.

"I got nothing," Carlos said.

Mal groaned. "I need you to not have nothing, Carlos."

Carlos raised his hands, surrendering to his leader's orders. "Trying harder."

While progress on the love spell was stalled, the door squeaked open. Una, Jay and Carlos were the first to turn to face the disturbance, but only by a split second.

"Oh, hi," Lanlei said. "I didn't expect anyone to be down here. What are you making?"

"Cookies," Carlos said. "I mean, we're trying. I don't know if they'll turn out very well."

Lanlei bounced over to the counter where they were working and looked into the bowl. "Looks like you're missing chocolate chips. Unless you're allergic?"

"Chocolate is the sweet brown stuff, right?" Jay asked.

"Yup." Lanlei opened the cupboard they'd found the flour in and pulled out a partially clear bag filled with little brown, well, chips. "There's nothing better than chocolate chip cookies. Well, almost."

"What's better?" Carlos asked.

Lanlei grinned and went to the metal fridge-freezer in the corner. While her back was facing them, Mal quickly looked through her spellbook. She shrugged and added a small pile of chocolate chips to the love spell. It wouldn't hurt, apparently.

Lanlei turned back around after digging another bag out of the back of the freezer. It was labeled with her Auradon name. "Steamed buns," she said. "Do you want to try one? They're black sesame filled."

The five Isle kids were silent.

"We don't know what that means," Evie said.

Lanlei put the bag of frozen buns down and got out a plate. "I'll heat up one and you can all try a piece to see if you like it."

The idea of seeing if they liked a food was a strange one. On the Isle, anyone who had food ate it no matter what it was, no room for likes or dislikes.

Lanlei warmed the bun in the microwave and cut it into five wedges. Jay was the first to try it. He didn't say anything for a while. Una elbowed him.

"It's good...I think," Jay said. "It's hard to describe. Doesn't taste like poison though."

"I'm not going to poison you!" Lanlei sounded incredulous. "Why would I poison you?"

Una could think of a few reasons, but Lanlei didn't seem like someone who'd go for most of them. Hell, even Harry wouldn't go for most of them. Poison was too quick for his liking.

The rest of them each tried a piece of the bun. Una thought it was good, though she agreed with Jay that the taste was hard to describe. It was sort of sweet but not too sweet and something else she didn't have a word for. She liked it. That was the important part.

"It's good," Evie said.

Carlos burst into tears.

For a split second, no one seemed to know what to do. Then Evie very politely and with a dash of succubus dazzling threw Lanlei out of the room while Mal hurried Carlos to the counter so he could cry into the love spell.

"Finally found something that worked?" Jay asked.

Carlos nodded, still crying. Jay patted his back somewhat awkwardly. It had probably been several years since he'd last had to comfort someone.

Mal sighed. "Let's get these in the oven."

So, Remedial Goodness was a stupid class and it made Una grumpy. When Jay and Carlos accidentally hit her while they were fighting over who got to answer a question because Mal had finally let it slip that the answer Fairy Godmother was looking for was always the one that sounded like no fun, it made perfect sense to hit back. She was already pissed off and she didn't use a knife, so who cared?

Fairy Godmother, that's who.

Jay and Carlos ended up on the tourney team with Ben. Una, on the other hand, got put on the cheerleading squad because that was the only sport-like activity girls were allowed to participate in outside of gym class and ballroom dancing club. Surprisingly, she didn't hate it. She got to throw people into the air or tumble through the air herself depending on what the stunt required, and as team captain Audrey was less of a bitch to her. Not much less, but she didn't want to literally strangle the princess every time she saw her anymore. The cheerleaders acted practically like a gang and Una wasn't raised to constantly think about murdering her gang leader.

Little bit of murder though, because Audrey sure as hell wasn't Uma.

Anyway, Una was on the cheerleading squad. That meant that she got recruited as a backup dancer when Ben started singing about his love for Mal at the end of the first tourney game of the year. It sucked, but at least the love spell seemed to be working.

And then Ben sang that he'd give his kingdom for just one kiss. Una could see Mal's eyes light up from across the field.

Yes, the love spell was working perfectly.

Ben was carried up the bleachers by being passed from person to person in a way that would have led to him getting dropped on his head if the magic hadn't needed it to go flawlessly. He stopped right next to Mal.

"Mal, will you be my date to the coronation?" Ben asked.

In the beat between Ben asking and Mal saying yes, Una caught a glimpse at Audrey's face. She was wearing a very familiar expression, total fury visually suppressed by the magic controlling them. It was going to be interesting to see what she would do after the magic let up.

"She said yes!" Ben shouted.

Nearly everyone on the field burst into cheers. Most of the tourney players were exchanging high-fives and fist-bumps. Aziz, Jasmine and Aladdin's son, high-fived Carlos and nearly knocked him over.

Audrey was fuming. The other cheerleaders formed ranks around her and muttered to each other.

"He's dating you!" Tamara hissed. "Everyone knows Ben's dating you!"

"Everybody, quiet," Audrey ordered. She turned to Una. "Did Mal do something to him?"

Una shrugged. She definitely didn't know for sure that Mal had done anything. The love spell had been a group effort.

Audrey crossed her arms and turned back to the commotion on the bleachers. "We're going for pizza with the team to celebrate our win," she said after a moment. "Spread the word."

The Auradon girls followed their leader's command, scattering to talk to the boys on the tourney team. Una headed in Carlos and Jay's direction. They needed to know that Audrey seemed to have a plan.

"And I thought she was going to make a scene," Carlos muttered when Jay finished translating Una's description of Audrey's reaction. "We need to keep an eye on this."

"I'll watch Pink Capitan/Audrey," Una signed.

Jay nodded. "We'll get changed and meet up with you. Save us seats."

Twenty or so minutes later, the tourney team and the cheerleading squad piled into the cars belonging to Coach, some parents and two senior students. The pizza place that Aziz told Una, Jay and Carlos they always went to after wins wasn't far from the school. There were wooden benches built into the brightly painted walls and the tables and chairs were as mismatched as the ones at Ursula's Fish and Chips, though in much better condition. It didn't look like the sort of place that Auradon's princes and princesses would visit more than once.

"They have the best pizza," Aziz said.

The teenagers took over all the tables against one wall. Audrey sat next to Ben in the corner with four cheerleaders acting as a buffer against the rest of the group. Una, Jay and Carlos sat at the next table over, close enough to eavesdrop.

Being backed into a corner meant that Ben couldn't run away when Audrey started demanding answers after their pizzas arrived.

"Do you have any idea how this looks?" Audrey asked. "You're my boyfriend but you're asking another girl to your coronation."

"Are you mad because Mal's Maleficent's daughter?" Ben asked.

Jay took a bite of pizza and smothered his laugh. Even he knew that Ben was so wrong. It wasn't about Mal being the daughter of her family's enemy, it was about Ben belonging to Audrey but rejecting her in front of the whole school. That was an insult on the level of a villain.

Una had to wonder if it was the love spell talking or if the future King of Auradon had a mean streak.

"I'd be mad if you'd dumped me for Maleficent's daughter. You didn't even bother to do that," Audrey said. "Did you sleep through your etiquette lessons?"

"No," Ben said.

"Then why did you think this was a good idea?" Audrey sounded near panic.

"I've wanted to break up for months," Ben said.

That was cold, and probably not the love spell.

"So break up with me! Don't make me the laughing stock of the country," Audrey said.

Ben stuttered out an apology that Audrey definitely did not accept, considering the near shriek. Una got a look at Audrey's face. This time the mask over her anger was all the princess's doing.

They definitely needed to keep an eye on her. Mal would be homicidal if Audrey ruined her plans, and Una didn't want the dragon faerie to have the satisfaction of killing someone first.

Also, Maleficent would be angry. No one wanted to make Maleficent angry.

Audrey ignored Ben for the rest of the meal. Una was the first of the Isle kids to stop trying to listen in on a conversation that wasn't happening anymore. The tourney boys sitting near them were much more interesting.

"We gotta step up our game, man. Ben's making us look bad," one boy was saying. Una thought his name might have been William.

"Not all of us need a song and dance to get a girl to go out with us," Aziz said.

Possibly-William shrugged. "It worked for our parents."

"Yeah?" Aziz turned to face Una. "Una, do you want to go to the coronation with me?"

Carlos, who was sitting closest to Aziz, yelped and grabbed Aziz's shoulders. "Do you want to die?" He spun back around to look at Jay and Una. "He didn't say anything!"

"Carlos, chill," Jay said. Then he saw the look on Una's face. "Una, chill. He doesn't know."

Jay had a point. They weren't on the Isle. Aziz wasn't intending to be insulting. Una tried to look a little less murderous.

"I don't know what?" Aziz asked. "Oh sh—shoot, are you dating?"

Una and Jay looked at each other. Jay was probably the only person Harry would talk to before stabbing if he heard rumours about him and Una.

"Cover?" Una signed.

"Yeah," Jay said. "For a while now."

Possibly-William laughed. "Better work on your singing voice, Aziz."

Secret 5

Audrey may seem like she looks out for herself first, but her cheerleaders are the ones she'd kill to protect. As long as she's captain, no king, prince or knight is going to hurt them.