It took every ounce of acting training with her mother for Evie not to burst out in laughter at their bewildered expressions. It was like she had just told them she was renouncing chemistry to become a PE teacher, not something that wasn't that surprising considering her heritage. Nonetheless, both Jay and Harry continued to gape at her, their eyes comically large and strangled words slipping out of their mouth before they could grow into an actual sentence.

"Magic," Harry said, his mind clearly trying to keep up. "As in…" he trailed off, doing some weird motions with his hands that eerily reminded Evie of when the VKs first came to Auradon and Mal acted out the wand usage to the Fairy Godmother.

Smothering her amusement, Evie nodded in affirmative, inwardly delighting at their- not that she would admit it to anyone else- adorable expressions. "Yup, I mean my mother is a witch, so it isn't too shocking once you think about it. I think it just took actual pain for it to unlock." her voice grew softer at the end, and she had to blink to keep the tears at bay.

"Glam, how did you find out?" Jay asked, her expression and wistful tone jolting him out of his thoughts.

"Well, when we were locked in my cottage, Audrey used magic to make boards block all exits and we wouldn't get out. Celia tried to use her shadows, but it didn't work. Then Mal tried to spell and once that didn't work, Uma tried with her, but it failed as well. They asked Celia to help them, but she was drained so she couldn't. She suggested I do it with them, and apparently my mother is a powerful witch or something so I tried with them and it worked." she said, letting them digest the information. "Honestly, I didn't know mother was that powerful. I knew she had some magic, but she made it seem like it wasn't that strong and she renounced it after her defeat, blaming magic for the failure of the apple curse," she added, not wanting to go into the true love kiss thing.

Jay seemed to mull it over before he nodded to himself. "Yea, I mean I kinda assumed you knew your mum was a powerful witch, she was pretty much equal in magical strength to both Maleficent and Ursula according to dad, and she could have defeated dad easily with magic before his wishes," Jay said, shrugging as if he hadn't dropped a massive bomb on his friend.

"Aye, ma da said she was a powerhouse too," Harry added, eyebrows slightly changed as he revisited old memories.

"Great, everyone except I knew about it. Why did no one tell me?" Evie asked, eyebrows drawing together as she drummed her nails on her leg.

"Darlin, we were sworn tae secrecy by ye ma," Harry said gently, looking at Evie with an earnest expression.

"It's true, Eves, your mother raged whenever it was mentioned, so the entire island mutually decided it was taboo to talk about. Your mum is as scary as Maleficent when upset, so no one wanted to deal with that," Jay said, shuddering when he remembered the one time he had gone to Evie's home on the Isle. Well, the one time the Queen knew of, anyway.

Jay could see Evie was processing. Her nails had increased their speed on her thigh and she had started to worry her lower lip. Internally cursing the Evil Queen for the umpteenth time, he cleared his throat, making her attention snap to him. "Why don;t we get your mirror and we can even see if they have any books you can borrow," Jay said, winking mischievously at the word borrow.

Narrowing her eyes playfully, Evie walked over to him and playfully hit his shoulder, being careful to not actually hit him. "No stealing, but I guess if we don't take it out of the museum, it's not stealing… right?" Evie said, a faux innocent grin on her face.

"Thatta lass!" Harry cheered, grinning at Evie and making her giggle at his boisterous demeanor. "Can take a lass outta teh Isle, but canny take the Isl out of teh lass," he hollered, making Evie and even Jay chuckle at his antics.

Without another word, Evie walked up to Harry, dragging Jay by his hand behind her. She slipped her free hand into Harry's without thinking and strutted through the museum, ignoring the way her hands fit in theirs seamlessly, and especially the warm feeling that bloomed at their joined hands.

Jay and Harry were in similar predicaments, their hearts racing from the contact with Evie's hand. They both knew that this was Evie, and she was famously touchy feely, yet for some strange reason it made their hearts lurch and cartwheel around their chest cavities, as if her touch had infused them with helium that shot straight to their hearts. They caught each other's eyes over her head before breaking contact and dancing at Evie. She was humming happily as she skipped through the museum, her eyes being drawn to all the exhibits despite being here thousands of times.

Jay smiled when he noticed that her eyes never lost the gleam they got when she was drinking in new information, and her lips never parted with the light, wonder-filled smile. She was like the moon, ethereal, beautiful and heartbreakingly out of reach, destined to only be admired from a distance. So despite the fluttering in his heart he knew he had to quell it, because no matter how… fond he was becoming of her, she needed his friendship right now, and he would do anything he could to make sure his new moon kept glowing and healing, making the light increase until it drowned out any darkness in the sky.


Absolute minuscule chapter and I apologise for that profusely. I've been so busy and exams are coming in a few weeks so updates will be sporadic. The next one will be extra long but I just wanted to put up something. Despite the shortness, I really hope you enjoyed it and would love to hear your thoughts.