Maddie's Perspective

Maddie met Gio at a Fairest store early in the morning before their first class.

"Hey, Mads." Gio said, perusing a few lipsticks. She held it up to her lips. "Yay or nay?"

"How are you gonna afford that?" Maddie asked. "I'm not swiping it for you."

"Leave the swiping to me." Gio giggled. When Maddie looked confused, she retrieved one of those weird plastic cards they'd received when they arrived and held it up. "We have these. We swipe it and people give us stuff."

Maddie examined it, reaching for it. "What's it do, is it magic?"

"Kinda," Gio laughed. "So, do you like Red as Blood?"

"If it's free, just get it" Maddie looked at the card again, reading the back to find out its secrets before Gio took it back.

"Nothing is ever free," Gio explained. "But we can afford some nice things, I budgeted our spree today. I told you I'd help you pick some stuff from your mom."

"Yeah, you two are such great friends." Maddie said bitterly. Her mom had come home in a yelling fit the day she found out Maddie didn't want to be here. Even when Madeline pointed out that Gio was manipulating her, she said 'at least she's smart enough to see this opportunity, go!' She reached for a pretty purple one. Maddie didn't like the idea of makeup, but she might like--

Gio took it from Maddie, setting it back. "Your mom likes red shades only. And I hope you're not mad about what I think you're mad about." She put a hand on her hip. "How am I supposed to keep something secret of you don't tell me it's a secret? That's on you."

"Sure, you're so dumb," Maddie said, eyes narrowed. "Same deal for your four other boyfriends?"

Gio giggled, tapping Maddie's nose before handing her a basket full of lipsticks and lipglosses and moving on to the eyeliners. "I know no guy has ever looked at you twice," she said with patronizing sweetness, "but there's no need to make up crazy lies just because Shen likes me more than you. I already told him you have a crush on him, he'd be flattered you're so interested you'd go this far."

Lies, lies, lies, Maddie thought, all lies, as usual. Giovanna tossed a few products in the basket.

"If you ever wanna make an effort for once, I'll give you a makeover, bestie. Now, did you look into the archives at the museum for me?" She tossed a set of eyelashes into the basket.

Maddie sighed. But she had direct orders from mom. 'If you want to insinuate that little girl can manipulate me, fine! Do everything she says and find a way to take credit when she breaks down the barrier! IT SHOULD BE EASY SINCE YOU'RE SO DISCERNING!!!!!'

"Yes," Maddie started, "they have the--"

"Ah ah ah, we're in public." Gio chided. She whispered, "that cashier with the janky eyeliner has been watching us."

"They're in storage in Agrabah." Maddie whispered. "Their Museum of Cultural History."

"Perfect," Gio said. "I can get us there if you think you can manage to get your hands on...it."

"I think so," Maddie said. "I can go as a regular guest, swipe a keycard, and access restricted storage. I just need a way to find out passwords."

"Coolness," Gio smiled, dumping foundation into the basket. She held up the weird plastic card. "Make sure to nab some cash from Chad to get your ticket. They can track where we use the cards. Let's check out."

Maddie followed Gio to the registers, noting the strange way the cashier whose eyes had followed them around the store grimaced. Gio smiled, "Oh my godmother, I love your eyeliner. Did you use a stencil for that wing or are you just supremely talented?"

The cashier smiled. "No stencil," She glanced down bashfully as she rang up their items. "I don't know about supremely talented, just a lot of attempts."

"Well worth it," Gio said with a smile. She looked to her right, grabbing a jar of... something. "Ooo, she could totally use a clay mask," Gio glanced closer at Maddie for a moment before grabbing another one. "So can you, Mads, your face is looking as radiant as the moon. As crater-filled too."

Mal's Perspective

The Event Planning Comittee was Mal's favorite extracurricular. Creativity and philanthropy, so a lot to love. Other than--

"Mal," Audrey said, smiling at her. "So nice of you to finally arrive. The future queen should really be early to these kinds of things, if you ever want to lead us."

"I saved you a seat, Mal." Jane said with a reassuring look. Mal went to the only empty chair, right next to Jane.

"So, we need to discuss our next fundraiser or series of fundraisers." Audrey announced. "It's where we'll get most of our funding for the year, so it has to be successful."

"I didn't know you were the president, Audrey." Mal said.

"Well, I have taken the lead in these kinds of meetings since we were all ten," Audrey said. "But you can make the first suggestion, I don't want you to have to pull out the cursed cookies."

Giovanna and a few of Audrey's friends laughed. "Maybe a car wash," Jane suggested, trying to lead the conversation in a more positive direction. "I can--"

"Car wash," Charm, Cinderella's daughter, said. "Groundbreaking."

"Well I think a bake sale--" Mal started.

"Like anyone would eat a cookie she handled," Audrey whispered to Anton, Anna's son. He giggled. "Maybe you have a brilliant idea to share with us, Audrey?"

"I'm more of a logistics kinda girl." Audrey said proudly. "If no one comes up with an idea, how can I organize it?"

"And take credit for it," Jane whispered to Mal. Gio raised her hand.

"We're not in class," Anton said. "Go ahead, VK."

She smiled happily. "Well, on the Isle--"

"This ought to be great," Cyn said.

"Let her finish," Jane said.

"We had these haunted houses sometimes where you walk in and it's decorated and some of us acted scary." Gio explained, talking expressively with her hands.

"Like that was hard, look at them," Cyn said.

Gio glared at Cyn. "It was hard, not all of our hair was fried and dyed blonde like yours," she grimaced. "Might wanna try a hot oil treatment if you wanna pretend that color's natural."

Audrey and Anton laughed and Cyn blushed. "Let her finish," Audrey said. "That sounds interesting."

"It was...it was like an adventure." Gio said. "But it doesn't have to be scary. We can set it up in the gym like a castle. And we can make most of the decorations and partitions ourselves. There are tons of cool things here, my friend was so excited when he found out soda has bubbles here."

"Is that new information," Anton asked.

"It is to us," Gio said, glancing at Mal with a dangerous smirk. "Soda on the Isle is always flat by the time it gets to us. Unless you're Mal. Her mom's goblins could float, so they had first pick of everything we got. Unfortunately Mal wasn't as big on sharing back then."

Mal glared at Gio. Already at it, she thought. "That was in the past."

"I'm sure it was," Audrey said, smiling at Gio. "She's upgraded from not sharing to completely stealing boyfriends and entire lives now."

Gio laughed happily. "I guess she has. Don't worry, guys, your boyfriends and girlfriends are safe. I have my own and it didn't even take a spell."

"So what else could go in this castle thing?" Audrey asked.

"Well, we can give people plastic swords and shields. They can be a hero that has to save someone inside and we can make the castle like a maze," she explained. "I think it'll cost a little more upfront, but we can charge way more than we would to wash cars or sell cupcakes. You could be the princess and prince, Audrey and Anton, and we could get costumes. Then we can get more since there's an option for whoever prefers to rescue a guy or girl or both."

"That would be amazing." Anton said.

"It would." Audrey said. "We can get some members from Swords and Shields to play as knights or something inside."

"Oooo," Gio said deviously, with a glance at Mal. "What about dragons? Everyone wants to be the one to slay a dragon, right?"

Audrey beamed while Mal glared. "I think you're gonna be an excellent addition to this committee. We might make more than we did when I came up with the true loves kissing booths thing."

"I came up with that," Jane whispered to Mal.

"Thank you, Audrey," Gio said. "But I have no idea how to organize it. Thank godmother we have you. But...I had an idea for a field trip to the Menagerie of Agrabah pretty soon."

Reggie's Perspective

Reggie was in the tower at Auradon Prep where the Alchemists' Society met. It was only completely and totally awkward seeing Wes, who ignored him. After the meeting ended, Reggie hid in a curtain waiting until everyone left.

He finally heard a soft knock at the door and descended the stairs. He opened the door, allowing Gio inside. "Hey, Red," she said, twirling a key on a string.

"What's that to?" Reggie asked.

"You'll see," she said enigmatically. "Courtesy of Maddie." She started climbing the stairs.

"Giovanna," Reggie began. "I can't keep doing the whole manipulating Wes thing. I feel bloody awful, it's not right."

"You know how to brew the potions and cast spells now, right?" Gio asked. They reached the top of the stairs and she looked around. "Wow, no tech. You wizards really are stuck in the past."

"Witch." Reggie clarified. "And, yes, I think I know how to do those things."

"I don't exactly like hedging my bets on think." She used the flashlight on her phone to find a door with a plaque that said Restricted Access. "Oooo, this looks interesting."

"Why are we going in there? They said students can't access it."

"Oh, is that what 'Restricted Access' means? I had no idea how to read English." She inserted the key in the door and unlocked it. She went in and blue light shone from the ceiling. Blue crystals were all over the ceiling like stars, revealing there was a row of cauldrons on the far wall. On all the other walls, there were jars upon jars full of potion ingredients.

"Wow," Reggie marveled, looking around.

"If you don't wanna be my favorite honey trap, fine," Gio said. She pulled a scroll of parchment from her purse. "If you can manage to brew the potions we need, that means you've learned enough and you can ditch him."

"That's the issue," Reggie said. He checked the scroll and climbed the ladder, sliding over to grab a jar. " I don't want to ditch him. I feel a little bit..."

"Attached to a mark?" Gio asked. When Reggie left the lacevines by a cauldron and went back up for cursed spring water, she said, "it's okay, it's cute. Oldest mistake in the book, but cute."

"It's not cute," Reggie said. "It feels twisted and wrong." When he came back down, Gio stopped him, holding his face in her hands.

"We're VKs, all of us are at least a little twisted and wrong," she said soothingly. "If you like him, Red, you have no reason to stop seeing him."

"I lied to him since the first time we spoke," Reggie said, feeling ashamed, "half the things I said to him, you told me to say. Even when I smiled, it was the way you told me to."

"He never needs to know that," Gio told him confidently. "If you're being genuine now, that's all that matters."

"I ran from him without my shoes the last time I saw him,"

"Seriously?" Gio chuckled before saying, "you're a very beautiful boy, Red. When you're beautiful, you get away with stuff like that. Just say your feelings were way intense and you got scared cause he's the first one that's ever made that happen. Cry a little too, it always works."

"Gio, that's... " It was awful, terrible, selfish, manipulative. But he really did want to see where things could go from here. "That actually may work."

"Duh, I'm a genius." She let him go, the warmth leaving her face. "Speaking of things that work, I have an idea. This is a compulsion potion. Brew it."

Reggie grabbed the ingredients, then examined the parchment. He poured the cursed spring water in the cauldron and blue flames roared to life immediately. He held a hand over the steam, reaching out to its magic. He began reading the spell, adding ingredients as he went.

"Blighted waters, bubble and boil

fog the mind, dreamshade oil

weave through their thoughts, vines of lace

glowflies, pull their thoughts from their place."

Red light shone from the cauldron and Reggie knew it had worked. The blue flames went out. Gio bumped him out of the way, spooning the potion into a few vials.

"Can you clean that out?" She asked. Reggie went to grab the cauldron, but she tapped the pocket in his blazer with his cards. Sure enough, the card was able to clean the cauldron until it was spotless before appearing in his hand again.

"So, are we done here?" Reggie asked.

"We have to test it, silly," Gio said, placing a vial in Reggie's hand.

He looked at it hesitantly before glancing at her. She smiled reassuringly and he decided it was easier to just down the potion. "So, what's the embarrassing dare going to be?"

Gio giggled. "No dare. Tell me how you feel about Wes," she said with a smile.

"He's scary, but...he seems sweet sometimes. Sad too." Reggie said flatly, all inflection lost from his voice. "I feel bad using him for informa--"

"Do you like him enough to betray any of us?"

"No, I'm literally terrified of you. And Shen. And Maddie. You're all rather awful--"

"Okay, it works." Gio said. "Forget everything after you drank the potion."

"Pardon me?" Reggie asked, confused. He didn't know why she was smiling like that. It always spelled trouble, though.

She took the empty vial from him. "Nothing, Red." She put a few vials of red liquid in her purse as well as a parchment scroll.

"How did we get here?" Reggie asked.

"No reason to worry about that." Gio said. "Now, tomorrow, go get your creepy Curse Guy. As long as you keep the magic coming, I'll never have any reason to tell him about how you've been using him for knowledge. He's all yours...for now."

Maybe it would be nice to keep a tally of how many times Gio'd made his heart drop down to his toes. But she just smiled at him, beckoning him to follow her out of the room.

"Come on, school curfew's soon." She said. "Don't wanna get in trouble, do we?"