Chapter 1

For four kids who were rotten to the core, the Isle of the Lost was where the music was made.

Mal, the daughter of Maleficent, stood on a slightly elevated staircase. She was hard at work spray painting a wall covered with the last month's batch of posters from Auradon. Some were of King Beast, and others of the Fairy Godmother, but both of them boiled down the same message: choosing good isn't so bad. Some - like Seyton, the Auradonian Royal Page - would probably call it vandalism, but she preferred to call it an improvement. She was making a few finishing touches on one especially egregious poster of King Beast with all the works: horns all over his crown, his human image obfuscated by crudely spray-painted lines meant to look like fur, and his benevolent message crossed out with black. It was in the center of the wall, so she had to make it good. Or bad, as it were.

Jay, sitting with his sister Evie and their friend Carlos on a stairstep below Mal, looked up at the posters. "Not bad, Dragon!" he whistled.

"Pft." Mal spat on the Beast's face, looking the poster up and down. The whole wall really was a sight to behold; it stuck out like a colorful sore thumb amidst the drab run-down shops that surrounded it. But who would speak up against it? It was Mal's work, after all, and all the lowly Isle-dwellers passing by beneath the steps knew better than to chide her. "Thanks. But I feel like there's something missing, yeah?"

Mal, Jay, Evie, and Carlos all stared at the center poster in silence, each one genuinely thinking about the best way to deface it.

That face didn't exactly have a pristine history, after all. It had held down their island for decades. It justified killing people who deserved it. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad if the Beast owned it, like their parents did, but he didn't.

If Mal could bring what that looked like into even a single paintstroke, King Beast - if that was what he wanted to call himself - would look even more evil than their parents.

In the middle of their scheming, a passerby stopped in his tracks and jeered at the kids. "Ha! You four know how dumb you look standing there? I'll tell you what it's missing, it's missing-"

Ah, this again.

Mal's eyes went bright green, and her nose crinkled.

Someone wanted to play.

She turned around slowly to face the poor man, cueing her friends to follow suit. "What was that?" She asked, faking innocence with her voice. It was enough to send a chill down the man's spine.

Scared by their gaze, the passerby babbled in an attempt to save himself. "I... I mean, it's not missing anything...! It's... g-great." But it was too little too late; only fools dared to disrupt this group.

As Mal held down the cap of her spray can, a storm of paint went into his eyes like black dust, causing him to yelp and run away. The four kids cackled in unison, their lips curling up maniacally as they watched him stumble around like an idiot. That would show him!

After a few more moments of delighting in the man's misfortune, Evie turned back around to face the wall. She seemed to have an idea. "You should say he's a dog," she volunteered, growling out the last word with an evil smirk. "Mom always says he has fleas." She clapped her hand over her mouth not even a moment later, a wave of shame washing over her. Smiling caused wrinkles! As her mother always said, she would be unlovable if she had wrinkles.

Besides that, it was important for Evie to never speak about her mom as her mother; the Evil Queen was very particular about that. "I mean... Her Majesty," she corrected meekly, taking her hand away from her mouth.

Ooh, that was good. Mal nodded in approval and sprayed a few black dots for fleas along the Beast's shoulders. "I like it, E." She turned around and snapped her fingers at the boys. "C'mon, what else?"

Almost as if on cue, Carlos took a red spray can at his feet and took a step to be on the same level as Mal. He shook it briefly before holding down the lid and spraying 'KILLER' in big bold letters all over that regal face. It was a true but underspoken fact about the Beast's rule, and Carlos himself had the memories to prove it - he'd been just six or seven when the Auradon Trust came into the Isle with a pack of dogs. They were big, and the whole Isle had been kept awake that night from how loudly they barked. The Auradon Trust had just... let them tear Cruella apart in the square, almost looking proud of themselves, before a few of them threw her body in the Strait of Ursula. He remembered how insulted he'd felt that they went back to Auradon as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Of course it hurt to lose his mom, but more than that, her delusional screams still kept him up at night sometimes. All the people watching... the mess in the square... he couldn't step foot near that part of the Isle to this day. Besides her body, all the evidence of something horrible happening to her was still there.

"There. Now it's finished," he mumbled, handing the can to Mal before leaping down to Evie and Jay's step.

Mal put her hands on her hips and scanned over the poster one last time. It did look better now. "Yeah, whatever," she said coolly, trying to sound unfazed. Even she was haunted by the memory of that night. Being nine years old and watching someone die wasn't much better than six or seven, to say the least. "Tch. Crossing sides, giving orders? Who do they think they are?"

"W-watch your tongue, Evil!" A voice squeaked from behind them. All four pairs of ears perked up. They didn't even have to look to know who it was. When they did look, however, they saw exactly who they'd suspected: a wiry-thin man with caramel hair tied back in a ponytail. Who else could it be but Seyton?

"Seyton, my man," Jay sneered, picking up a sharp rock and throwing it at him. "What are you doing here, buddy? Did you miss us?"

"You seem lost," Evie purred, twirling her hair.

"Yeah. Maybe you should run screaming," Carlos growled, about ready to pounce on him. "What do you want? You were just here, like, last week to put up your dumb posters."

Mal moved aside to show off her work. "Here, we thought we could help make them better," she said, flashing him a fake smile. "What do you think? They're pretty cool, huh?"

"They are no such thing!" Seyton exclaimed, bringing his trembling hands close to his chest. "Why, I'm of the mind to call them insolent, disrespectful, and blasphemous! His Majesty is not a killer."

"Then what happened to Cruella? You know, my mom?" Carlos challenged.

"Cruella de Vil? She got what she deserved," Seyton shrugged. "I could say I'm disapponted in you for defacing His Majesty's image, but that would suggest I expect more from the spawn of villains. And to answer your question, I'm not here because I miss you. I have an important message from Auradon. You see, an announcement should have come about some of your kind being chosen to attend Auradon Prep - something about how Prince Ben thinks they deserve better - and I was hoping you could direct me to them."

"Psh. I feel sorry for those losers," Jay quipped. Carlos nodded along, laughing a bit. A death glare from Mal shut them both up.

"I assure you, Isle-dwellers, it is not my choice to have them sullying our halls either, but it is the future king's decree."

"Who are they?" Evie asked.

"The daughter of Maleficent, the twin son and daughter of Jafar and the witch Grimhilde, and the son of Cruella de Vil. Provided he hasn't joined his mother in the Strait, of course," Seyton joked.

"You're looking at them," Evie answered.

"Sorry, not us," Mal, Jay, and Carlos said in unison over Evie. Once they realized what she was saying, all of their heads darted toward her, completely bewildered.

Mal grinned innocently at Seyton, trying to break the tension - and any of his suspicions. "Just give us a minute," she said, huddling up with her friends. She led them away from Seyton's earshot. When he tried to come closer and listen in, Jay and Carlos barked loudly at him. Jumping back in fear, he stayed back.

"You can cut the act, E," Mal hissed, shooting her friend a look. "I know you don't really want to go."

"Yeah! They killed my mom, Evie. Their dogs did. Dogs are vicious, rabid pack animals! If Auradon allows dogs, who knows what other stuff they have?" Carlos trembled.

"Sorry Her Majesty sucks, but I like being here with Dad!" Jay said, nudging Evie with his elbow. "We have a thing going with me stealing for him, you feel me?"

"You guys, don't you see? We can bring our evil over there and get revenge for Cruella," Evie protested. "Besides, I know you want to get away from your mom, M. And you hate Dad. Don't think I don't hear you praying that he'll get cursed all the time," she continued, giving Mal and Jay pointed glares. "Isn't this our chance to leave them? We shouldn't blow it."

"And what if we get sent back?" Mal retorted. "If our parents find out that we had a chance to destroy Auradon and we failed, we're goners. I'm not going."

"That's what'll happen to me if Her Majesty finds out that I turned down a chance to marry a prince," Evie said quietly.

Carlos nodded slowly, starting to get Evie's point. "Yeah, you know how the Evil Queen is about Evie getting married," he said. "Maybe going wouldn't be the worst thing if it's to avenge Mom."

Mal looked down at the ground, biting her lip in thought. She'd gotten plenty of talks about how her mother had been cursing entire kingdoms at her age... maybe going to Auradon would be her chance to do that too.

"I guess there'd be a lot cooler stuff to steal in Auradon too," Jay said under his breath. "And I'd get to keep it instead of giving it to Dad."

"Exactly! Come on, Mal," Evie pleaded. "No matter what happens, we'll have each other."

Mal crossed her arms. "Fine."

Carlos and Evie's faces lit up. "Really?"

"Yeah. We're going," Mal said, smiling wickedly. "Let's bring that place down in flames."


A/N: And so the adventure begins! Thank you for stopping by and reading.

- Amy Jo