Jay's Perspective

Jay and Carlos went to the museum the next day during their free period. They were standing together in a hallway Carlos had stopped him in...for literally twenty minutes. While he looked at a stupid painting of fairies. Before Jay could say anything, Carlos tapped his arm and pointed covertly. Jay looked up at a security guard exiting an unmarked door, revealing...a wall with screens that showed corridors in the museum. Jay stuck out his tongue and the screen displaying the hall they were standing in did the same. Carlos hit his arm again while the door shut.

"Okay," Carlos said, "only one more guard in there. If you can pretend to tie your shoes, you can start working on the lock. I'll block you from view, the camera is to our right."

"Got it," Jay said, moving to go to the door until Carlos grabbed his forearm to stop him.

"Quietly."

Jay shushed him and crossed to the door on the other side of the hall, bending down to pull his lockpick out of his shoe. He inserted it into the lock and Carlos got closer to his right. It was annoying how slow he had to go to keep from making a huge noise on the other side. Thankfully no one was around on this side, bu—

"Can you hurry it up?" Carlos whispered, looking left and right worriedly.

Jay shushed him again, focusing as he continued and..."got it."

"Thanks," Carlos led him down the hall. "We need to hurry while only one of them is in there, did you decide on the distraction? A fire, a—"

"Don't worry about it," Jay interrupted. "I did research all night, it was in a movie."

When Carlos looked at him quizzically, Jay grabbed a wet floor sign, throwing it off to the side. He laid down on the ground, bending his arm a weird way. "You know we're on camera right now and that looks very susp—"

"Who left the floors wet without a sign?" Jay cried loudly. Carlos sighed, returning to wait near the door. "I'm gonna sue somebody, do you know who my father is! His castle has the best lawyers on this side of Camelot, HOW DARE YOU!"

Evie's Perspective

Their dorm had practically become a meadow by now. Princes were delivering bouquets every morning that got larger and larger. Sometimes they even came back later in the day when they noticed how much smaller theirs seemed. It was perfect...aside from the fact that she had to throw so many away. Nothing personal, but she needed to get to her sewing machine. Everyone had bought her an amazing designer dress when they asked her to the coronation. But she kinda needed to be Ben's date to get the wand and everything. Even though he'd sent her a dress the same shade of blue as her hair, which she hated. But that's where supreme sewing talent came in handy.

The door opened and Mal strolled in, scowling when she saw all the flowers on the floor. "Mind if I walk onto my side of the room?"

"Don't be stupid," Evie said cheerily, cutting fabric from a disgusting black leather jacket that she couldn't believe she owned, "of course you can, I left you space to walk through."

"If I turn into a squirrel maybe," Mal complained, bulldozing straight through the vases. She pulled her spellbook from her backpack and began flipping through.

"See?" Evie teased. "She's resourceful."

Mal fixed her with a glare, then noticed the jacket she was cutting into. "Is that my jacket?"

"Huh?" Evie asked. Then she looked closer and saw the purple dragon spray painted on the back. "Oh, that makes sense," she smiled, "of course I thought it was ugly, it's yours. I'll have to wash out the leather if I want this to be the bodice. But I guess—"

"Evie!" Mal said, closing the book. "Is that my jacket?"

"I'll sew you a new one when I'm done." Evie went back to dismantling the jacket. "Hades, I could take you to buy ten new ones. I ran into Ben while I was shopping and he just gave me his credit card. Chad too when I ran into him in the—"

"You are so lucky I don't have time to deal with you right now." Mal started furiously flipping through her spellbook.

"All that stress is totally not good for your complexion," Evie said.

"Like I care about my complexion right now when..."

"When?"

"None of your business."

Evie put down the scissors and looked up at Mal. That was cagier than usual, which is saying a lot. And if she was hiding something, it had to deal with the wand. With coronation only a week or so away..."Intel for intel?"

"What could you possibly know that's useful?" Mal laughed. "Who can afford the biggest flower bouquet?"

"Nope, something bigger," Evie said cryptically. "Waaaaay big about the wand, but you probably—"

"What about it?" Mal looked up.

"Oh, how could I possibly know something useful?" Evie shot her a little glare as she considered what cut would pair well with the cape she was imagining. Something pointy, pointier is always better. "I'm too pretty and shallow."

Mal's eyes began to glow green. "Intel for intel?"

"Secret for a secret," Evie agreed. "Mine's way bigger, you go first."

"The boys are going to the museum tonight."

"So what?" Evie shrugged. "The four of us together barely got out without being caught."

"Well," Mal began. "I spied on Carlos and Jay talking about how the magic works with technology. Tonight they're gonna try to work together to get the wand. Carlos is gonna use the computers here to shut off the security spells at the museum while Jay breaks in." Evie inhaled sharply. "I'm looking for a spell to stop them, but...nothing."

"We can't have that, can we?" Evie asked. "Girls versus boys for the day?"

"Don't you have a secret to tell me?" Mal asked suspiciously.

"Oh, that." Evie considered for a second how much she should say. She decided at least half the truth would do. "Apparently, FG uses the wand during the coronation to gift Ben's reign with luck, fairness, and peace."

"That's the big secret?"

"The wand will be out and unprotected. And royal students are allowed to attend with a date," Evie explained, letting Mal realize the opportunity it was. But...she didn't need to know everything. "I've got a few guys clamoring for me to be their date, but, even when we get there, we're pretty far from the wand during the ceremony. Wanna help me intercept it before they bring it to her?"

"Like I'd trust you."

"Ouch," Evie said. "Just when I was gonna help with your problem tonight." She turned back to her dress, shrugging. "Oh well, who cares if the boys beat us?"

"What help?" Mal asked suspiciously.

"You're looking for a spell, but that's not the point of a spellbook usually," Evie explained. "You're supposed to add your own eventually, you just need to be specific with your words so it does what you intend for it to do."

"So make it up?" Mal asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No!" Evie said hurriedly. "Making spells up as you go is how you end up floating in the sky with no way down."

"Fine, so how do you recommend I make it up?" Mal turned to her fully.

"What do you wanna do?" Evie asked. "Turn off the power in the computer lab and get Jay caught?"

Mal considered it for a second. "No, he might talk. We can't have him reveal we're after the wand, they'll bump up security."

"So?"

"Maybe a power outage at the museum. That could seem kinda normal as an accident."

"Easy then," Evie thought it over while she cut off the arms of her coronation dress. "Little sparks your fate's turned dour, time for you to lose your power. And be specific with how you imagine it and managing how much emotion you put towards it, don't wanna make it a curse on accident." She began to sew the arms from the jacket back onto the dress, completely missing the look that Mal sent her way. "If the spell doesn't fade after a while, they won't be able to fix the circuitry and they'll investigate."

"Little sparks your fate's turned dour, time for you to lose your power," Mal whispered. Evie screamed, almost falling to the floor and jumping back as sparks flew from her sewing machine. She looked up and Mal was standing over her.

"Oh, you weren't lying, you did end up fixing my jacket," Mal said, holding up her jacket, both of the sleeves cleanly cut off. "I think I prefer sleeveless." She laughed when she saw Evie's glare.

Carlos's Perspective

Carlos crept into the computer lab that night, avoiding anyone on the way there. The computer lab, fortunately, didn't have any cameras. He pulled a laptop from his bag, connecting to the school's wi-fi. He opened it up, pulling out a flash drive. He opened a program, and a second computer screen appeared in a window on his screen. He got a text from Jay that he was waiting in position. Carlos took a few minutes and he had two windows, one that played cycled footage of the museum from the last night and one that showed the footage from the current night.

Carlos texted Jay that it was safe to go inside. He was able to see Jay climb through a window and creep through the halls of the museum. Past the Corridor of Challenges, past the Animal Atrium, past the Hall of Heroes, and down to the Hall of Helpers. He approached the wand and Carlos got to typing. Over the past few weeks in his programming class, Carlos had noticed he was really good at it. Like really good at it. Like it was another language that he never even realized he could even speak.

This conversation was a bit more difficult than any ones in the past, but it seemed like everything had clicked when he realized the wand was classified using a nickname. It was called WngStr. "Wing star?" Carlos wondered. But it had to be the wand. When he realized, it wasn't exactly easy from there. He took a while to get to it, noticing that his phone dinged with notifications from Jay. But, eventually, the line labeled Sts, followed by a few characters, wound up shifting from Prmd to Dctv. "What does that mean?" Carlos wondered. He got another text from Jay and decided to risk it. Typing an all-clear message, he sent it to Jay and waited.

Jay reached for the wand, finding no resistance in the air. Carlos smiled. The wand was finally in their grasp—the screen went black. On both windows, the screen went black. The program Carlos had opened shut down immediately.

"What?" Carlos wondered.

Carlos's phone dinged and he read the newest message.

Jay: Brrerr up so brilht u'm blnd

Carlos: You're obviously not blind if you're texting me

Just come back and we'll try again another day.

Jay: all ur falt Devilll

Carlos: You think I planned this? We can talk about it when you're back.

And Jay never responded.