Gosalyn looked distinctly guilty when they approached the manor. He knew immediately she'd been doing something she shouldn't have been. He raised his eyebrows at her and she flashed him an innocent smile that fooled no one. Drake narrowed his eyes at her and glanced over at the other kids. Dewey and Louie appeared oblivious; Louie was fussing with his phone as usual and Dewey was taking selfies. Huey, Gosalyn, and Webby, however, had clearly been dabbling in something forbidden.

"All right. What happened?" he asked.

Louie looked up from his phone with interest.

"Nothing happened!" Huey exclaimed too quickly.

"We didn't do anything. I have no idea what he's so excited about," Gosalyn lied.

"I wasn't hatched yesterday, Gosalyn," Drake said. "What happened? I'll ask it one more time before I started poking around."

"We might've unleashed evil on the world when we released a teenage girl from her magical confinement," Webby blurted and Gosalyn facepalmed.

"You are the worst at lying," Gosalyn said. "You always got me in trouble at the orphanage, Webs."

"I'm sorry," Webby said. "But I couldn't keep my beak shut. What if Magica's wandering around Duckburg now looking for a host?"

"Slow down," Darkwing said. "I'd better come in. This sounds like a long story."

"Wait, what? You did all of that without telling anyone but Huey?" Louie scoffed. "Didn't you realize he was going to blow your cover?"

"Well, now I do," Gosalyn muttered.

"What. Happened?" Darkwing demanded.

"There was a teenage girl trapped in a magical spell and I had to free her because I felt bad for her and she'd been stuck in stasis for fifteen years and-" Webby started and he cut her off.

"Does Scrooge know?" he asked.

"Uh…" Huey, Gosalyn, and Webby said in unison. Darkwing facepalmed.

"I'll take that as a 'no'."

Exchanging unhappy glances, the children led him into the manor and then a sitting room. Drake had time to notice the large screen TV dominating one wall before Gosalyn, Webby, and Huey spoke in unison. They spoke over each other, too, which made it hard to figure out what was going on. He glanced over at the corner of the room to find a teenage girl with a pink streak in her hair looking at a phone intently. She glanced up at him.

"I'm Lena," she said and went right back to scrolling.

"You have an Instagram already?" Dewey asked, sitting beside her. "How many followers do you have?"

"Fifty, but I only made it, like, an hour ago," Lena responded.

"You've only been conscious for about four hours and you already have an Instagram account?" Huey asked. It boggled the mind.

"I would've had one sooner, but, you know, walking without falling over was a thing," Lena said.

"Start from the beginning," Drake advised, glancing from Lena to the others. "And don't skimp on the detail. First off, who's Magica?"

"Magica de Spell is Mr. McDuck's greatest enemy," Webby said solemnly. "They fought on Mount Vesuvius and he trapped her shadow self, along with Lena, inside his Other Bin until we freed both of them. Today.

"Magica's a sorceress."

"Not like Morgana," Gosalyn cut in.

Drake frowned. He didn't entirely get where this was going, but he had a hunch he wasn't going to like it. He'd left Launchpad to check over his pad in the garage, which meant he was on his own here. Of course, he could always enlist the other adults and probably would need to once he heard the whole story. What a mess.

"She's an evil sorceress," Webby supplied. "Who's Morgana?"

"Dad's new girlfriend," Gosalyn said casually. "You should meet her sometime. She's pretty cool."

"Besides the point!" Drake snapped. "You unleashed an evil sorceress on the world and now you don't know where she is?"

"Don't need to know," Lena said, not looking up from her phone. "She'll be consolidating her power for a while and hiding in a host."

"A host?" Drake repeated. "Oh, this just gets better and better."

"Chill, Dad," Gosalyn scoffed. "It's not like it's Armageddon."

"It could be!" he retorted. "Do you have any idea where Magica is?"

"Uh…" Huey, Webby, and Gosalyn said again.

"I have to tell Scrooge and Mrs. Beakley," Drake said, rising from the couch.

"No, don't!" Gosalyn said. "I promise-we'll find her. Scrooge won't even notice."

He wasn't buying it. He supposed she also had a bridge to sell him if he was going to swallow that particular tall tale. Gosalyn squirmed under his scrutiny and he turned his attention to Webby and Huey. Huey looked like he wanted to cower-the kid was such a stickler for the rules that Drake wasn't surprised he was wigging out. Webby appeared to be biting the inside of her cheek.

"C'mon, Dad," Gosalyn wheedled. "Don't you have enough to worry about with St. Canard's blackouts? And all those villains committing crimes? Aren't you missing out on apprehending them right now by reprimanding me? You don't want to let a bunch of convicts roam the streets, do you?"

Drake stared at her and she smiled back.

"What kind of reputation would Darkwing Duck have if that was the case, all to go tracking down a shadow? How would you even know where to look? And it'd detract from your time as a crime fighter. We can totally handle this. After all, we let her out. We can put her back."

Lena opened her beak and then closed it, shaking her head. Though her eyes remained glued to the screen, her expression was troubled.

"Even assuming that I let you do that, how would you put her back?" Drake said.

"I'm sure we'll think of something," Gosalyn said brightly.

"You know, I am missing out on the action by staying here…" Darkwing Duck mused. Gosalyn concealed a grin. "All right, fine. You have one week to track Magica down and put her back where she was. If you can't by the end of a week, I'm telling Scrooge and Beakley. Okay?"

"We won't let you down," Gosalyn promised. "Scrooge won't even notice she's gone. As for Lena, well, uh...we can hide her in the closet."

"Wait, what?" Lena said, looking up from her phone at last. "I'm not living in a closet."

"She can stay with us, right, Dad?" Gosalyn said and batted her eyelashes innocently. "That way, Scrooge won't notice she's missing and he won't have a chance of stumbling upon her in the manor. Win-win, right? Plus, if Magica's gone to St. Canard, maybe Lena can help us find her there."

"I don't know, Gos…" he said.

"Besides, you're always saying I need other friends besides Webby and Honker," Gosalyn said. "See? I'm expanding my circle of friends."

"All right," he agreed, albeit reluctantly. He had the feeling she was pulling one over on him, but he didn't want to belabor the point. The Ratcatcher barely had enough room for himself, Launchpad, and Gosalyn. They'd have to take the Thunderquack to pick Lena up. The longer she stayed here, the greater the chance Scrooge would encounter her.

Lena shivered, staring out at nothing all of a sudden. Her blue eyes were wide and troubled. The phone fell, unnoticed, onto the carpet. Her beak was quivering.

"I don't think you have to go as far as St. Canard, wherever that is, to find Magica…" she said. "I can't exactly sniff her out, but I feel dark magic in Duckburg. She gives off weight on the astral plane, like a heaviness on your chest."

Lena seemed to be keeping something back. Unfortunately, Drake hadn't the foggiest notion of what it was. Casting her a shrewd glance, which she appeared not to notice, he looked back at the other kids again. There was more to this story than anyone was telling him, which irritated him. It wasn't even Gosalyn keeping secrets, though that was part of it. He had the feeling he was being manipulated.

"Do you know where she is?" Webby asked and Lena shook her head.

"Just...that she's around...and she's angry…" Lena said and then shook her head again. "But since she was angry for fifteen years, that doesn't narrow it down."

"When you were stuck in stasis for fifteen years, you mean you were completely aware of everything that was going on?" Huey asked.

"And listening to Magica rant about it, yes," Lena said quietly.

"Wow...fifteen years of listening to someone complain," Louie said. "That sucks."

"Tell me about it," Lena muttered. "She went on and on."

"I hope you have more than a vague feeling about where Magica is," Drake warned. "Or else she might be able to do more damage than you can handle."

"Like I said, we have everything under control," Gosalyn lied smoothly.

"If I didn't have so much on my plate right now, I'd seriously question that," he warned her. "C'mon, let's go get Launchpad and get out of here. You're going to be awfully cramped in the Ratcatcher, Lena, but since Gosalyn neglected to mention that she was taking someone with her, you both will have to deal with it."

This last he said through gritted teeth. He gestured for the girls to follow him. He had the feeling he was making a monumental mistake, but he couldn't have said how, exactly. It loomed over him like the Sword of Damocles, sinking lower and lower, about to crash over him.

The feeling was far from unfamiliar, however, and he found he could shrug it off. For now, at least, the danger wasn't imminent. And it wasn't like Magica would be plotting revenge against the man that had trapped her in stasis for fifteen years, right? She couldn't possibly have gone for the closest person to him, right? That'd be ridiculous.

And just like that, he pushed it from his mind. The kids would handle it. If they couldn't, that's when he would bring in the big guns.

Scrooge was too well protected. All those magical curses hanging over his head were counterbalanced by magical protection that Magica couldn't circumvent. Hissing, she sought out Duckworth. Lamentably, the butler was now a shade and unusable. That left...oh, well, that'd be an interesting twist. Donald or Mrs. Beakley? Donald wouldn't be a good conduit for her, she sensed. He was also very stubborn, which meant she'd spend most of her time fighting him. Mrs. Beakley would be similar, except that Donald had been protected by a demigod. Mrs. Beakley had no such defense.

Her decision made, Magica set out for her target and grinned. Right under his beak and he'd never suspect a thing…

Negaduck was annoyed. As usual, Darkwing Duck was taking his sweet time to figure out what his nemesis was up to. He'd set all of this in motion to get his attention and, lo and behold, the idiot was off gallivanting around. It sounded like he'd need to play with the big guns now.

That was all right, though. Negaduck quite enjoyed playing with the big guns. And he enjoyed watching Darkwing flail about and fail at life. It was, in fact, what he lived for.

He cast his gaze about St. Canard and found Morgana. She'd been a villain, but had reformed thanks to "love". The thought made him sick. How could she have fallen for his goody-two-shoes counterpart? With the power she possessed, Negaduck could've made her queen. Instead, she'd settled for an idiot who was more in love with himself than her. Of course, Negaduck was in love with himself too, but at least he did it better. He did everything better than Darkwing Duck.

Perhaps all hope wasn't lost. Perhaps he could convince Morgana to rejoin the side of villainy. He'd need to be convincing, but...he thought he could pull it off. All he needed was a little luck.

The first thing Mrs. Beakley was aware of was that she was no longer in control of her body. She'd been shunted to the back of her mind and someone else was pulling the strings. That same someone flicked through her memories like a book and then snorted as if Mrs. Beakley's life were of no great consequences to her. Mrs. Beakley recognized that snort. She knew that oily, dark, despicable feeling. Magica de Spell. But how had she gotten loose? And how was she…

If Mrs. Beakley's skin could have crawled, it would have. When she looked into a nearby mirror, her eyes glowed yellow.

((That's right,)) Magica crooned in her mind. ((Behold. You are now my puppet. Of course, I can't have you taking the dime right now. What fun would that be? As much as I would like my real body back...I think it'd be much more satisfying to take revenge this way. Wouldn't you say?))

She couldn't speak. She was pressed to the darkest recesses of her mind and couldn't respond. She was stuck there, a butterfly pinned to the wall. The worst part was that she had no one to signal for help. Mr. McDuck was her employer, not her confidante. The only other adult in the household was Donald and she could hardly talk to him, even if she'd wanted to.

No, she was isolated. Magica cackled, delighting in her realization.

((No one's coming to your rescue. No one knows you well enough to even try.))

She raised her hands to her beak, but they were no longer her hands anymore. Though she saw her face in the mirror, it was no longer hers by any stretch of the imagination.

((Bit plumper than I'd like, but I suppose I can work with that as well. Now, now, don't be shy. Or would you rather…))

Darkness descended over Mrs. Beakley and for a moment, she saw and heard nothing. Panic swept in and she quaked inwardly. Surely Scrooge would realize something was wrong. No, wait, that vainglorious money-pincher wouldn't notice...would he? They were more than boss and employee, weren't they? She was part of the family.

((Keep telling yourself that. As for me, I have places to be and things to do. Time and tide wait for no man. Or should I say, woman?))

Magica cackled and, for a while, that was the last thing Mrs. Beakley heard.