Isle of the Lost (Descendants 1)

Mal had her gang of thieves.

Her very own minions.

And that was progress indeed.

Her evil scheme—the big nasty one—was working.

The path away from the village and toward the shore was smooth at first, but soon became rocky. Mal began to flag. Her feet hurt in her boots, but she soldiered on grimly, now leading the way and following the directions on the map. Behind her she could hear Evie’s light steps, Jay’s stomping ones, and Carlos’s tentative ones.

“Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to work we go,” Carlos sang under his breath.

Evie shuddered. “Don’t.”

“What do you have against dwar—Oh, right,” he said. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“So that was your mom, huh?” said Evie.

“Yup, the one and only Cruella De Vil,” Carlos said, bypassing some poison ivy and pointing it out to the rest of the group to avoid. “One-way ticket to crazy town, right?”

“She’s not so bad,” said Evie, who ducked below a low-hanging branch of a creepy oak tree. “At least she doesn’t do this thing that my mom does, where she pretends to be a Magic Mirror telling me I’m far from the fairest of the land.”

Carlos stopped in his tracks, and he and Jay looked at her, shocked. Even Mal turned around to stare at her.

“Really? But you’re gorgeous,” Jay said. “I mean, you’re not my type, sweetheart, but you’ve got to know you’re good-looking.”

“Do you really think so?” she asked.

“Nah, you’re mom’s right—you’re ugly,” Jay teased.

“That sucks that she does that,” said Carlos quietly.

“Whatever,” Evie said nonchalantly. “It’s not like I care.”

“You really mean that?” asked Carlos.

“I mean, it’s not like your mom is any different, right?” Evie pointed out. They were the children of the most evil villains in the world. What did they expect: love, joy, sympathy?

“I guess not.”

“And your dad, Jay? Doesn’t he only care about the shop?”

Jay brooded on that. “Yeah, of course. But what else is he supposed to care about?” he asked honestly.

Mal listened to their conversation, finding it oddly soothing to have other people around, for once. She’d never really liked companionship before; but then again, Maleficent had always insisted that they lived apart from the pack—superior, alone, and bent on revenge.

Lonely, Mal thought. I was lonely. And so were they.

Evie, with her beauty-obsessed mother; Carlos, with his screeching harpy of a parent; Jay, the happy-go-lucky thief with a quick wit and dashing smile, who could steal anything in the world except his father’s heart.

The gray fog surrounding the edge of the shore loomed closer. Soon they would have to walk through the mist and enter Nowhere. When they did, would they also become nobody? Mal wondered. She cracked her knuckles. Her knees began to ache.

They trudged on in silence for a while, when a sharp whistle cut through the air. It was from Jay, who had been scouting ahead. Evie took a step and crunched twigs loudly underfoot, while Carlos looked up fearfully.

Mal whistled back.

Jay jogged to where the three of them were huddled together.