For a moment the mirror remained foggy and dark, but slowly it began to shift and reveal something else: a face in the mirror. The face of the mirror.
“What wouldst you know, my queen?” asked the mirror in a deep, sonorous voice that echoed throughout the castle.
It worked! Evie tried to keep her composure.
“Magic Mirror on the wall,” she said, addressing the mirror by its full, true name. “Show me the dark fairy named Mal.”
The clouds swirled once more. Then they parted to reveal deep blue depths. A sunken pirate ship. A great school of fish, swimming in a circle.
“Where is she?” said Evie, searching every image in the mirror. “SHOW ME MAL!” she commanded.
Carlos gasped. “Look!”
Through the bubbles and the murk, they saw their friend walking dazedly on the deck of the ship. Mal was walking toward a door, as if compelled toward it.
She had a glassy look in her eyes as she reached for the handle.
“Mal! Stop! Don’t open that door
!” yelled Evie.
ack in Hades’s cave, Uma had suddenly returned, and was dripping water all over the floor. She was back from her battle with Mal—but the most important part was still to come.
“Hey! Watch it!” said Hades grumpily.
“I got her where I want her!” said Uma. “See!” She touched her seashell necklace and pointed toward the broken television, which sprang to life. It showed Mal under the sea, on the deck of a pirate ship, heading to a locked door.
“She thinks she won, but when she opens that door,” said Uma gleefully, “I’ll appear right in front of her, and then I’ll take the key to our freedom! She’s walking right into my trap!”
“She is?” asked Hades.
“Of course she is! I confused her, then spelled her, and now she’s on the verge of letting all of us out!” Uma laughed in glee.
“How’d you do that?”
“I’m a sea witch,” said Uma smugly. “I own these waves.”
“Right!” said Hades, who appeared to finally catch on that their plan was working.
Uma plopped down on the couch and leaned back. “All she has to do is open that door.”
Hades squinted at the screen. “What door?”
“That door!” said Uma, pointing to the door on the pirate ship, annoyed that she had to explain it again. “She opens that door and I pop out!”
“Really?” Hades asked, not quite convinced. “But you’re here.”
“When she opens the door, I’ll be there! Sheesh, you’re so slow. I think you spent too much time in the Underworld,” said Uma.
“So you pop over there, and then what happens?”
“I grab the key to our freedom!” screeched Uma. “Click—open and out!” She glanced sideways at him. “What’s wrong? You don’t seem excited to leave.”
“Oh, I am! I really am!” he said. But there was something else in his voice that Uma couldn’t quite place.
Then Hades’s face broke into a malicious grin. “Wait till I surprise my brother Zeus. He won’t see me coming!”
“And I’ll have my pirates back!” said Uma. She jumped off the couch and knelt by the television screen, her face inches from Mal’s pixelated one.