Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Maleficent holds her daughter for the first time, she feels her heart break in the best and worst of ways. 

The infant is small, unusually but not dangerously so, and what little hair she possesses is soft, downy, and charcoal-dark. 

Her eyes will not open for a while yet, but Maleficent hopes she will be able to see green irises, bright and fiery like her own, when they do.

The faerie can feel her baby's magic already. It thrums faintly like a pulse within her tiny form. Strong and dark, with the uncertainty of an undeveloped mind.

The Isle depletes magic; eats it from people like a parasite, and uses it to strengthen the barrier. It's a self-sufficient beast of a spell, and one that Maleficent chafes under every day she breathes. 

It leaves enough for her to exist, (no, they wouldn't let her die. They aren't that merciful) magical creature that she is, but all the rest is gone. Her energy is so drained that some days she can't even get out of bed without fainting.

Her daughter is powerful still, with more energy than even Maleficent does under this curse. Her little girl has the potential to be magnificent, one day, if she were to ever be freed from the oppressive atmosphere that is innate to the Isle of the Lost.

Daival is immediately smitten, and it softens Maleficent's heart like few other things can. His dark eyes grow large and soft when he lays eyes on her for the first time. He strokes her cheek with one finger, careful and hesitant like she's a ghost of mist and is afraid to startle the illusion.

"She's beautiful." He says, and she knows he's being honest. He's always honest, when it counts. He already loves this child as much as Maleficent does. It makes this feel like less of a mistake.

Maleficent had never wanted children. She hadn't wanted to be in love, either. All those dreams died when she was young and innocent and a boy she'd loved had cut her wings from her back.

But life is merciless, and she fell in love anyway, with a creature that sacrificed his wings to stay by her side.

Daival had been indebted to her. His actions in aiding her could be excused. He could've flown free and lived any other life rather than this one. Aurora had even said as much, with her soft doe eyes that Maleficent had wanted to claw off her face.

(I had loved you, daughter of mine. And you had loved me too, I think. At one time.)

But he'd chosen to stand by her side, in human form. So he could hold her up when she couldn't stand on her own. So he could whisper words of comfort that she’d hear from no one else in the world. To keep her from losing her mind as she lost everything else about her that she’d ever been proud of.

She knew for a fact that it hurt. She knew by the way she'd catch him staring blankly at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. She knew by the way he'd stare out the windows like a caged bird. She knew by the way he sometimes rubbed and scratched at his skin until it bled because it felt so very wrong, and she couldn't change him back anymore.

"You didn't have to stay with me." She'd told him one night, when they sat together for dinner. There hadn't been much to eat. There never is much, on the Isle, and all she can remember about the meal was that it involved stale bread and bad fruit. "I wouldn't have held it against you if you'd chosen to leave me."

There was a beat of silence. He lifted his gaze to hers and looked a mixture between amused and bewildered and sad all at once. Daival seemed to marvel at her words, as if she'd said something profoundly stupid.

"Mistress, I thought I'd made it clear by now that I'm not sticking around out of obligation."

"Then why? Why torture yourself like this?" Her voice broke, and she steeled herself immediately, mortified by her own emotions.

"Because I love you." The words were warm and fond, and his smile was more beautiful than it had ever been.

Why did she feel more fear in loving him than she had when she’d been dragged onto the Isle?

It had been so long since she’d opened up her heart to anyone, and after a girl she’d considered her daughter betrayed her...it was hard to believe that even Daival wouldn’t turn his back on her.

It had taken a few years for Maleficent to let herself return his affections openly. It was still so strange, sometimes, to yearn to kiss him or mess up his hair, and then realise she could.

Maleficent hadn’t ever expected to get pregnant. She assumed she was too old, or that there was just no possible way she would ever be given a second chance by the universe to have a child. 

But here she was, settling a fae child of her own flesh and blood and magic into the arms of the creature she loved. 

Daival was practically glowing with joy, holding his little girl with such care that it almost made Maleficent want to cry. He nuzzled into the sleeping child’s coal-dark baby curls, hunched over the bed so he could kiss his mate’s sweaty brow.

“What should we name her?” Daival hummed, probably hoping she’d go with one of his family names. She knew he thought the ones in her native tongue sounded crude, but that he was too polite to tell her anything. It was cute that he thought he could hide anything from her, truly. 

“Well, we won’t call her by her name. Mal should do, for an outside name—“

“That’s not very creative.” Daival said, brows raised, but he offered no other protest, so she paid him no mind.

Maleficent eyed her daughter, taking in the dark curls that contrasted so starkly with her last child. Aurora had been named after the dawn, when the sunlight would bleed into the sky and raise day from night.

She held one of her daughter’s tiny hands in her forefinger and smiled bittersweetly. Her heart felt heavy and her mind clouded with grief as she remembered. 

“And her other name, who she will tell few others in her life, is Vespera. My evening star.”

Chapter Text

Jane has known one thing her entire life, and it’s that something was fundamentally wrong with her.

When she was young, she didn’t have a name for it. She only understood it was there from the way her mother cried at night and held her as the force inside of Jane screamed.

When she grew older, she knew it’s name, and why it was one that the entire realm of Auradon cursed.

Magic.

Magic was what had turned princes into hideous beasts and cursed maidens to sleep for a hundred years. Magic was what had ruined life after life for thousands of years.

And yet, magic was as vital to Jane as the breath in her lungs. She generated it on her own, like all magical creatures did. It pooled and collected and raged like fire against the insides of her skin and along the pathways of her veins.

But magic was a terrible thing. Magic was forbidden.

And so each and every night, Jane found herself lying awake and struggling against the buildup inside of her until glowing tears of acid burned through her pillowcase.

Her mother soothed her, then. Would curl around her and rock her back and forth, back when she was able to do so.

Her own mother, she would later learn, had only been allowed to live as a favor from Cinderella. A reward for her loyalty.

That didn’t mean she could walk around without wearing her jewelry. The little metal rings that encircled every limb, and even her neck, all welded shut. They looked thin and light, but Jane knew firsthand the toll they took.

Jane was grateful, every day, that her father was human. Grateful that her mother had convinced the kings and queens of the land Jane was born human, with none of the ‘imperfections’ that plagued her mother’s line.

Jane would never faint out of the blue in the middle of the kitchen, or in the showers where her only family wouldn’t find her for a while. She would never need a wheelchair. She would never die young, like her mother did, as soon as Jane turned sixteen.

Not if she was careful.

Chapter Text

Ben was born on the fourteenth of May, the spitting image of his mother. 

After so many years of trying and failing to conceive, his birth was celebrated just that much more fiercely by the people. A grand party was thrown that had lasted at least several weeks, at the king’s insistence.

“Your father was so happy he cried.” Belle would later huff, a twinkle of mischief shining in her dark eyes. “And I had to convince him I didn’t think less of him for it before he turned to show me his face.”

Ben, a mere six summers old, smiled softly, leaning deeper into her shoulder as she brushed her fingers through his hair. 

She had a worker’s hands. Never saw the point in growing out her nails or softening her callouses. She wasn’t ashamed of her background. No, his mother wore her wrinkles and scars and imperfections with…not quite pride, but confidence.

“And you?” He stared up at her with wide hazel eyes, basking in his mother’s affection like a cat in the sun.

“Oh, Ben,” she whispered, voice warm and fond. “I would have done any number of horrible things just to see you draw breath. But you did, and it is a gift I thank the heavens for everyday.”

“Why was I different?” He asked, because he had to wonder. “Why did I live when my siblings didn’t?”

Belle wouldn’t answer, only humming softly and scratching more at his golden-brown curls, and Ben didn’t ask again.

A week later, Ben was standing just outside the door of the room where his father held council. He didn’t even need to press his ear to the dark wood to hear the words his father screamed.

“They are criminals! Liars and thieves and murderers! Magic. Why should it matter what happens to them? Let the plague wipe them out.”

It had been the first time he’d ever heard his father yell like that. His eyes were wide and wild as he watched the door, as if waiting for the king to burst through and catch him listening, but the door stayed shut.

He’d been bored of his lessons and had managed to outrun his latest tutor. He’d only wanted to find his father and see if he would play with him, knowing he was busy, but also knowing there was nothing the king wouldn’t do for his son.

The room was hushed, for a few, long moments, before a nobleman Ben didn’t recognize said something, and a whole new flurry of conversation bloomed, high and frantic.

Ben shifted closer to the door. It was a small thing, sat behind his father’s throne, hidden by its enormity. It was made for an easy escape into the tunnels that were littered all around the castle, and Ben had long since memorized where all of them led.

“If I may,” a timid woman spoke, hesitant but loud, “they aren’t ALL villains. I mean, surely the children don’t deserve to die.”

There was a harsh, barking laugh, and Ben’s nose wrinkled in distaste as he recognized the voice of a particularly obnoxious count. “With parents like theirs? It’s in their blood. I say we let them deal with it on their own. Small isle, after all. Call it population control.”

A scatter of laughter and agreements fell upon Ben’s ears, muffled but loud, even through the door. 

“My Prince!” Lumiere called from the hall, sounding frazzled. “Where are you? Poor Lady Jane has been worried sick!”

Ben eyed the door to the main hall with no small amount of irritation before letting out a small breath and slipping soundlessly out of the tunnel. 

He was met by a brightly lit hall, and he blinked as his eyes adjusted, glancing behind him as the small door closed and blended completely back in to the wall around it.

“Ben! There you are!” Lumiere rushed over to him, fussing over the cobwebs in his hair and brushing the dust from his shoulders. “You’re a right mess. Your mother would be disappointed to see you like this.”

“Lucky thing she’s not here then,” Ben said brightly, sliding a step back out of Lumiere’s range. His eyes slid around, unable to settle on his uncle’s gaze for longer than a second.

“Where have you been?” 

“I was looking for father…” Ben trailed off, head still echoing with the words he’d heard his father yell mere minutes before.

“You shouldn’t have.” Lumiere scolded half-heartedly, visibly softening. “You know he’s very busy today.”

“He’s busy everyday. And anyway, it’s not like I interrupted him or anything.”

“This time.”

“Yes. This time.” He flashed a grin. His heart wasn’t in it.

Perhaps Lumiere could tell, because he eased up on his scolding, lips pressed into a thin line. He held out his hand wordlessly for Ben to take.

They walked soundlessly down the halls, and Ben found his eyes getting caught on every shadow. They seemed to morph into shapes that seemed…alive, somehow. Breathing.

“You’re quiet.” Lumiere observed, words careful. “What happened?”

“I’m just tired, Uncle.”

Nearly a full year later, Ben had almost forgotten what he’d overheard entirely. It was easy to forget, when no one would talk about it around him. The Isle of the Lost was a heavy topic, and not something usually brought up around children.

But other children brought it up to each other easily enough.

“I heard Maleficent has a daughter, and that she’s my age.” Audrey whispered from Ben’s side. She didn’t seem to know what to make of that. 

Ben squeezed her hand under the table, silently supporting her after he noticed the waver in her voice.

“I bet she’s an ugly creature.” Chad snickers. “Grandfather says young faeries always are, before they learn to hide it with their magic.”

Jane, his mother’s ward, inhaled sharply from his other side, and cowered into her bulky coat. He only saw the pained twist of her lips, her eyes hidden behind the colored glasses she always wore.

Ben didn’t know why she was sad, but it made him upset to see her that way.

“Wonder why you haven’t been sent over there,” laughed a kid that Ben didn’t recognize. “You’d fit right in!”

Audrey looked away, tight-lipped, while the boys across from them wrestled. She was looking down at her plate, and whispered to Ben and only to Ben: “Mother says she thinks they’re starving.”

Someone overheard. “I heard that if they get hungry enough, they eat each other!”

There was a chorus of disgusted and delighted noises, the children caught in the thrill of imagined fear.

Audrey seemed seconds away from shouting at someone and starting a fight, and Ben took that as a sign they needed to leave. He grabbed Jane’s coat sleeve with his other hand and started leading her away.

Jane stayed silent the whole carriage ride home.

A month later, Ben was sitting at the dining table with his parents. His mother was dressed plainly, an apron tied over her skirts, and his father was dressed as well as he always was, and with a frown heavy on his face.

He knew he was doing something wrong, somehow, by asking, but after all this time, the question nagged at him. He couldn’t stop it, this time, from slipping out.

“Are they really all monsters? The kids on the Isle. I mean, they’re kids. Like me. How could they be—?”

“No, Ben.” The king looked as if he’d aged a hundred years since the conversation began. “They’re not like you. Filth runs in their blood.”

The queen sat, back straight and breath steady. A statue, suddenly, more than a woman.

Ben said nothing, casting his gaze down and watching the food sit on his plate. He couldn’t bring himself to eat it.

“Can I be excused?” The words were small.

The king tensed, and was about to speak when his wife laid a soothing hand on his arm. Her eyes told him she would handle it herself. 

A sigh. “Fine. Go to your chambers and get ready for bed. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.” 

If Ben were any less upset, he would have complained about being treated like a child. As it was, he couldn’t stop hearing his father’s words echo in his mind.

“I will go with him and help him get to sleep. I’ll join you later, my dear.” Belle stood up at the same time Ben did, briefly placing a hand on her husband’s shoulder and squeezing in assurance. 

The halls were nearly deserted. At such a late hour, most of the castle’s inhabitants had already bundled themselves up in bed and gone to sleep.

Ben was silent as they walked through the halls, afraid to voice any more questions, but bursting with them. He did not want to say his father was being bad, because he was his father, but…

Belle slipped through the doorway to his chambers and beckoned him inside with a flick of her wrist.

“Ben,” she said quietly. “You are such a smart boy.”

Ben tilted his head, confused but proud.

“You are so, so smart, and so, so sweet, but I need you to understand something okay?” She seemed to brace herself.

“Okay.”

“Your dad is wrong about the Isle children.” She said the words in a whisper, but she did not look afraid. “He hates them mostly because of what they can’t change.”

“Because they’re villain children?” The words were hesitant.

“No, baby,” said Belle. “They’re Magical.”

Ben knew she wasn’t done, and he waited. He grabbed a handful of her dress and traced the soft fabric with his fingers, trying to soothe his own nerves.

“I need you to know…” a pause. “I need you to understand that your father is wrong. About magic.”

“Why would Daddy be wrong?”

“Your father was cursed before, baby.” She ran a hand through his hair. “He has reason to dislike magic, but he has never seen the good it can do. Only the bad. And your father’s always had a hard time seeing beyond himself, you know.”

“Yeah,” said Ben, thinking of how Jane’s last birthday was ruined by his father not showing up to the dinner table. “I know.”

Belle smiled and pinched his ear lightly. “My baby is so smart.”

Ben giggled. “Not a baby.”

Belle smiled and held her son in her arms, and holding him felt like holding them both.

Chapter Text

Audrey’s mother was the most beautiful woman who had ever existed, and everyone knew it. 

If Aurora asked for something, everyone fell over themselves to get it for her. If Aurora cried, so did you. If she told you to fall on your sword, you would do it without question.

Little Princess Audrey would watch the fall of her mother’s curls and the graceful way she walked, and she would think to herself, ‘I want to be just like her someday.’

Audrey had grown up with three extra shadows—her aunties, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. They weren’t really her aunties, of course, but that was what her mother called them, and so that was what Audrey called them too.

They had once been powerful faeries, or so the stories claimed. But Audrey had only ever known them as tired old women in faded gowns, their faces lined with exhaustion, their hands trembling from the weight of the iron bracelets locked around their wrists.

The bracelets were plain, dull things. They looked small and unremarkable, but Audrey knew they weren’t. She had heard the court whisper of them and their magic-draining properties, how they kept the faeries “docile,” and how they had spared her aunties from the Isle.

Aurora never spoke of the bracelets, but Audrey saw the way she winced whenever she caught sight of them.

She didn’t understand why.

The faeries were strange. Their memories were foggy, their spells long forgotten. Merryweather often lost her train of thought mid-sentence, blinking as if she had forgotten what she was saying. Fauna would start humming lullabies and forget how they ended. Flora, the sternest of the three, would sometimes mutter about things she had meant to do but never did.

Their magic was gone, and with it, pieces of them had gone too.

Still, they tried their best to be good aunties.

Flora taught Audrey how to sew, though her hands were unsteady. Fauna taught her songs, though the words often escaped her. Merryweather tried to teach her how to dance, though she forgot the steps halfway through.

And Audrey—clever, observant, and ambitious Audrey—watched them closely.

She loved her aunties. They were warm and doting, even when they were distant and confused. They told her stories of her mother’s childhood, and that was Audrey’s favorite thing of all.

Once, when she was seven, she had reached for Merryweather’s hand, tracing the bracelet on her wrist.

”Why do you have to wear this?” Audrey asked.

Merryweather had blinked at her, puzzled, as if the question itself was strange.

“Oh, well,” she said vaguely. “That was the deal, Dearie.”

“What deal?”

Merryweather hesitated. Then she smiled, as if she had already forgotten the question.

“It’s just how things are,” she said.

She asked her mother later, pressing her face into Aurora’s skirts as she whispered, “Did Auntie Flora and the others do something bad?”

Aurora’s whole body stiffened.

“No, my love,” she murmured.

“Then why do they wear the bracelets?”

Aurora’s hands clenched into the fabric of her dress.

“Because they had no choice,” she said.

And Audrey didn’t understand it then, but she would.

Just like her mother, Audrey had two names, but she only used one. If she’d asked her father why, he wouldn’t have answered, and his face would’ve gone dark and grim. 

(If she’d asked her mother, the older woman would have paled, taken a breath, and told her the truth.)

Audrey didn’t ask, though. She wasn’t terribly interested in the reason why, anyway. She quite liked the idea of having a secret name. Secrets were fun and interesting, and she wanted to collect them like shiny gems.

Her grandmother agreed with her outlook, in any case. Queens should learn to collect secrets, after all, and Audrey was destined to be a Queen.

But of just one kingdom?

Queen Leah was adamant that one day her granddaughter would marry the young prince Benjamin and she would rule over Auradon with him, but Aurora and Philip didn’t allow such talk when they were around, shutting the older woman down with a sharp glance or a cutting word.

But Philip was a king and Aurora was a queen, and they had other duties to attend to. If she wasn’t being tended to by her nursemaid, she was being tended to by her grandmother.

Leah was ever-present in Audrey’s life as she grew up, eyes eagerly drinking in every milestone and never seeming to look away. Her first word was “Gamma” and Queen Leah reveled in it.

Audrey first met Prince Ben when she was as young as five, and they got along swimmingly. Tentative introductions cascaded into chasing each other through corridors and pranking Lumiere and Cogsworth by replacing all their sugar with salt.

(Later, she will realize just how much the two let her and Ben get away with, just out of the relief that Ben had a friend.)

Audrey didn’t think she’d mind marrying Ben, if she had to marry anyone. He was the politest boy she’d ever met, and he was one of her closest friends. 

Her mother always said she should marry for love, and her father agreed, but Audrey did love Ben. She just didn’t love him the same way her parents loved each other. It hardly mattered to Audrey, who wasn’t interested in romance in the slightest.

She asked Ben how he felt about marrying her one day when she was seven, and he answered that he didn’t know.

“I don’t think Mama would want me to decide right now, though!” Ben always spoke of his mother like she knew everything. “But I think we could do a great job ruling together! We’d be the best king and queen ever!”

Audrey agreed, smiling wide and pure. She would be a great queen if she put her all into it.

So she shadowed her mother, most days, watching her intently and mimicking the way she held herself. 

The people loved Aurora’s compassion. Her generosity and her love, her beauty and her softness.

So Audrey took notes, and gave her toys to the servants’ children. She didn’t need them anyway, she was too old for them. 

(she was six.)

She threw herself into her lessons, determined to be the best. History, politics, diplomacy—she devoured it all, memorizing every law, every name, every piece of etiquette. She learned how to tilt her chin just right when she spoke, how to command a room without raising her voice. She practiced her curtsies until they were impeccable, her embroidery until it was flawless.

She learned how to make people love her.

She played with the common folk, and learned their names, their wishes, their hopes and their dreams. She made two of them her personal maids, and she treated them like her sisters.

She groomed herself meticulously, brushing out her own curls herself and oiling them every morning, and then applying hair masks in the evening and retiring early when she could.

She practiced her walk, trying to move gracefully no matter where she was, be it the forest or the street.

She practiced her smile every morning in the mirror, watching the slight stretch of her lips so they didn’t show off too much teeth.

She practiced her laughter, even, reigning in her natural snorts and cackles for soft, demure laughter that she hoped flowed as naturally as her mother’s did.

But as Audrey grew older, she realized her mother wasn’t always so soft and subdued. She realized her mother’s slow, quiet nature was sadness. Her mother was grieving. 

“Mommy,” she asked one morning, when her mother had taken it upon herself to braid Audrey’s hair back. “Why are you so sad?”

Aurora’s fingers froze, and she leaned back into her chair. For a long moment, she said nothing, and Audrey stared straight ahead, refusing to watch her mother’s face. Her hopes sank.

Then she spoke: “Dear One, why do you think I’m sad?”

“Because you don’t laugh like other people do, and you don’t smile like them either. Not even at Daddy.”

Another silence. Aurora resumes braiding Audrey’s hair.

“Do you remember how I was raised by your aunties?”

“Yes…”

“Well there’s one faerie in particular who raised me that no one else talks about. Aunt Merriweather, Fauna, and Flora are here with us, but you know how they still wear their bracelets?”

“Yeah.” All magical people had to, or King Adam would send them away. Her aunties were no exception.

“Well…” Aurora took an unsteady breath, her fingers trembling slightly as they paused in braiding. “Maleficent didn’t want to wear them.”

“Maleficent?” Audrey tried not to jump, turning to her mother on instinct. “Maleficent raised you? But didn’t she curse you?”

Aurora smiled, strained and unconvincing. “She did. But…she regretted it, I think. She was the one to break the spell, did you know that?”

“What?” Audrey gaped. “But everyone says Daddy did when he kissed you! True love’s kiss!”

“Oh, Dear One.” Aurora swept Audrey into her arms, and Audrey clung to her. “I was saved by true love’s kiss, but from the love of my godmother, not the love of your father.”

“I didn’t know true love could be that kind of love.”

“Oh, but my dear, that’s the truest love there is. The love Maleficent had for me…and the love I have for you.”

Chapter Text

Everyone on the Isle knew about Mal. It was harder to slip into a crowd when your mother was the faerie queen of the moors. Mal had territory on the Isle, both her mother’s and hers.

They learned very quickly that Mal was a powerful faerie, and they also learned just as quickly that Mal had no idea.

Changing your natural hair color with magic was easy for a fae, but not within the confines of the barrier. Any magic within the barrier was usually siphoned into it, and so spells rarely ever managed to take root.

But Mal? On her ninth birthday, in her sleep, she had changed her hair from inky black to a dark violet. The family had celebrated in the morning for her bit of accidental magic, and Maleficent made sure everyone on the Isle knew just what they were celebrating.

It took an insane amount of magic to make any spell work on the Isle. It wasn’t impossible, but for most magical creatures here, it would mean giving up their lives for the spell.

Mal had done it in her sleep.

(granted, she spent the rest of that week bedridden from the magic she’d depleted, but still. The fact that it was able to be done at all…)

The rest of the faeries celebrated with beaming smiles. They played music well into the night for several nights after, and their wild revelries, even without magic, were wild enough to have put a sizable dent in the local animal population.

(Not only for blood sacrifices, but because faeries have been known to sometimes favor their meat raw and fresh.)

The faeries of the Isle had flocked to Maleficent as soon as the barrier formed. They huddled close, keeping their safety in numbers as their worlds changed. They looked to Maleficent for answers and strength, and she ruled them with a seasoned hand.

As she grew, Mal played with other faerie children. They would swarm the forests and play strange games that usually resulted in half of them injuring themselves on the terrain.

It was on a day like this where Mal met a boy who called himself Jay.

“Mal!” One of the fae children said. She was Mal’s age, a solemn wood nymph with muted white freckles and the horns of a white-tailed deer. “Trouble up ahead! Via found a human boy caught in a chase!”

Mal’s second in command called herself Juni because she was born on the sixth month. She was quick and strong, with a stubbornness streak a mile-wide, and there was no one more loyal to Mal than she.

“Is it a friendly chase?” Mal asked casually, already speeding up into a run. She was sure-footed as she went, dancing over roots and branches like she was made of air.

“Decidedly not!” Fionn declared, dropping beside them from where he was crawling in the trees. “The man chasing him has a knife!”

She could hear the man now, shouting angrily about filthy street rats and how he was going to string the boy up and repurpose his skin.

Mal burst through the trees and into a clearing. Juni and Fionn and a few of the others stayed hidden in the trees, their stares raining down from high branches, over half of them holding bows in their hands that were ready to fire.

The man was tall and muscled, with a gap-toothed sneer on his lips. He looked to have lost sight of the boy, and when she came through the trees, the movement attracted his attention.

She could pinpoint the exact moment the man realized who she was, because he blanched and took a step back. His grip on his knife faltered briefly before his knuckles turned bone-white on the handle.

It was less her power and more her mother’s that inspired his fear, but she reveled in it nonetheless. She tilted her head slightly as she set her stinging eyes aglow.

“These woods are not yours,” she said, and it was only a whisper, but he heard it as if it was right in his ear. “The fae own the forest, human. Do you challenge my mother?”

“I do not,” said the man, and his raspy voice trembled as he backed away another step. “And I will leave.”

“Do so,” Mal commanded. “Or I will find another use for that foolish brain of yours that isn’t sitting inside your dusty skull.”

She wasn’t lying. The fae never lie.

The man left slowly, likely knowing that if he ran, she’d feel compelled to chase him. And if she chased him, she would catch him. Even without magic, humans were easy enough prey to subdue.

With a minuscule flick of her head she sent Mars and Via to follow him in the trees. They would make sure the man actually left.

Perhaps any other day, she would hunt him down and confuse him on his path, maybe tell some birds to dive into his face and scratch at his eyes or at least steal something from the leather bag at his hip.

But there was still a human boy in her forest.

Juni and the rest followed her without any need for instruction, slinking through the brush or darting from the branches.

They found the boy hiding in the hollow trunk of a rotted tree, shivering as he clutched a cloth sack close to him. His hair was long and bound in a single braid down his back, and his clothes were tattered and torn. Fresh, shallow cuts littered his face and arms.

She didn’t bother to hide from him, knowing he would only startle more if he couldn’t see her coming. She just walked out to him on the ground, steps graceful and silent.

He saw her out of the corner of his eye, she knew, because although he didn’t look at her immediately, she saw his back stiffen.

“He thinks I stole from him.” The boy said, dark eyes meeting hers unflinchingly, even when they both knew he’d noticed her horns and wings.

“Did you?” Mal stared at him, unblinking.

After a long moment where they each studied the other, they both smiled, and the faerie children hiding in the brush seemed to deflate.

“What is your name?” She asked it more to tease him than to trick him. She knew he was too clever for that.

He stared at her blankly for a moment and then rolled his eyes. “My father calls me Jay.”

“My father calls me Mal.” She stared up into the trees, but when he tried to follow her gaze he saw nothing. “And so do they.”

Jay swallowed, a slight tremble shaking through him before he could stop himself.

“I will leave the woods. You don’t have to chase me out; I meant to leave anyway, but he didn’t stop at the boundary-line like I thought he would.”

“Would you like to play with us instead?” It wasn’t an offer she made lightly. The closest other humans ever got to “playing” with the fae was when they were the ones being hunted.

One of the other faerie children shifted uneasily in the trees, and Jay’s eyes immediately tried to find the source of the sound.

“If you do chase me, I won’t run,” he insisted, stubborn. “And it won’t be any fun for you.”

Mal laughed, and he flinched at the strange sound. She held out a hand for him to haul himself up out of the hollow. It was small and dark, as if stained with charcoal, and the ends were tipped with sharp claws.

“I won’t hunt you. I am simply inviting you to play with us. I haven’t seen a human child before…I want to play.”

And remember: the fae do not lie. They can’t.

Jay took the faerie’s hand.

Chapter Text

Chad Charming had always been told he was special.

From the moment he could walk, the castle halls rang with praise for him—the heir of Prince Charming and Cinderella, blessed with beauty and grace, destined to continue their perfect legacy.

He was raised in glittering ballrooms and golden towers, dressed in silk and velvet, and taught to smile the way a prince should.

The son of Cinderella and Prince Charming, he had every luxury a boy could dream of—polished shoes that never scuffed, toys carved by the finest craftsmen, and a name that glittered like the jewels in his family’s crown.

(But fairy tales only looked perfect from the outside, really.)

Chad learned quickly that magic was a forbidden word in their castle.

He learned it from the iron gates woven with spells to keep magic out.

He learned it from the heavy silence that fell whenever someone mentioned Cinderella’s fairy godmother.

And he learned it from the anger in his grandfather’s eyes whenever Chad asked questions—questions about the fae, about the Isle of the Lost, about why all magic had to be locked away.

“Because magic is dangerous, ” his grandfather snapped the last time Chad asked. “It’s wild. Corrupting. It cannot be trusted—and neither can anyone who carries it in their veins.”

Chad didn’t argue, not out loud. But he couldn’t forget the way his mother’s eyes softened whenever she told him bedtime stories about enchanted pumpkins and glass slippers.

Magic had saved her once.

So why did everyone else act like it was something to fear?

His grandfather, King Charles the Valiant, loomed over the castle like a shadow. Once a great hero who had fought in the War of Sorcery, he had led the charge to banish magic from Auradon and seal away the faeries, witches, and other creatures deemed dangerous.

The war had left him scarred, not in body, but in spirit. He never spoke of it directly, but the fear lingered in his sharp eyes and heavy voice.

“Magic is treachery,” King Charles said often. “It seduces and corrupts. It turns good men wicked and beautiful women into monsters.”

Chad wasn’t sure he believed that, but he nodded whenever his grandfather spoke. The King didn’t like questions, especially not from children.

Chad’s father, Prince Charming—the Prince Charming —was different.

Where King Charles ruled with iron certainty, Chad’s father, King Henry, ruled with grace and patience. His voice never rose, even in anger, and he seemed to understand things that others ignored, like the way people fidgeted when they were nervous or how a kind word could sometimes mend what swords could not.

His mother, Cinderella, was gentle and lovely, and was always smelling faintly of lavender. She smiled often, though not always easily.

She didn’t speak about magic much, but Chad knew it lingered in her thoughts. After all, her whole story had begun with magic—pumpkins turning into carriages and mice into horses. He had heard it a hundred times from the court bards, but when his mother told it, she always stopped before the end.

Despite his parents’ quiet sympathy for magic, King Charles’s rules were law in the castle. Any mention of spells, faeries, or enchanted objects was met with a sharp glare or worse.

Chad learned to be careful. He avoided the library’s restricted section, with the books with gilded symbols on their covers, and he never asked about the things he sometimes glimpsed out of the corner of his eye—glimmers of gold in the garden, like fireflies.

But he felt it.

And sometimes, when Chad was alone in the garden, he swore he could hear music—not the kind played by strings and flutes, but something older and wilder.

The first time he asked his grandfather about the Isle of the Lost, he was ten years old.

“What’s it like?” Chad had asked, careful to keep his voice steady. “The place where the villains live?”

King Charles’s gaze snapped to him, cold and sharp. “It’s a prison,” he said. “And they deserve to be there. Every last one of them.”

“Even the kids?”

“There are no innocents on the Isle,” his grandfather replied.

“But what if they—”

“Enough, Chad.”

Chad flinched. If there was one person he feared above all others, it was his grandfather. Above magic, above faeries, above Maleficent—

He never asked about the Isle again.

As Chad grew older, he became more aware of the cracks in his family’s glass castle.

He saw the way his father sometimes lingered in the garden, staring at the fading roses as if expecting them to bloom again.

He heard the tremor in his mother’s voice when she spoke of the past, the way her fingers brushed against the glass slippers she kept hidden in her chambers.

And he saw the fear in his grandfather’s eyes—fear that hid beneath all the rules and anger.

Chad didn’t know what it meant yet.

But he knew one thing for sure.

Someday, he would find the answers his family wouldn’t give him.

Chad stood at the edge of the ballroom, his back straight and his hands clenched tightly behind him, the way his grandfather had taught him. Posture shows power. Smile shows charm.

The other noble children flitted about the room in clusters, laughing and whispering behind gloved hands. They were perfectly polished, like dolls lined up on a shelf, and Chad could feel their eyes flick toward him before darting away again.

“Prince Chad!” one of the girls—Vivienne, daughter of a duke—called out with an airy giggle. “I love your jacket. Is it new?”

“No,” Chad said stiffly.

Vivienne’s smile faltered. “Oh. Well, it’s… very regal!”

The other girls giggled, and Chad felt his stomach twist.

This was how it always went.

They didn’t care what he thought or how he felt. They only cared about who he was—the prince, the heir, the grandson of a war hero. The Charming name meant something to them, and that was all that mattered.

The boys weren’t any better.

Half of them tried to impress him with stories of their swordsmanship or their fathers’ accomplishments, and the other half just wanted to brag about their wealth and titles. None of them talked about anything real.

Chad tried, at first. He tried to laugh along with their jokes, to share stories about hunting trips he’d never actually enjoyed. He tried to keep up with their endless chatter about parties and gifts and who was wearing what to the next banquet.

The smiles they gave him never matched their eyes.

They talked about themselves so much that they never noticed when Chad stopped talking altogether.

He hated them.

He hated how shallow they were, how they only cared about looking perfect and saying the right things. He hated how easily they followed his grandfather’s lead, parroting everything he said about magic and bloodlines as if it was law.

Worst of all, he hated how easy it was for them. How they never had to try.

So Chad stopped trying.

He spent more time in the castle library, surrounded by dusty books that no one else bothered to read.

He explored the gardens alone, memorizing the paths and climbing the twisted branches of the old willow tree near the pond where no one could see him.

He sat quietly in his room at parties, pretending he had a headache so he wouldn’t have to listen to the nobles talk about how much they hated their servants or how many castles they owned.

He practiced swordplay with his father instead of training with the other boys and spent hours embroidering with his mother while they traded stories from books they’d read.

His world became small.

And maybe that was better.

He loved the palace gardens, especially at night. That was when the shadows stretched long and soft across the marble paths, and the world felt quieter, kinder.

It was on one of those nights—long after the castle had fallen asleep—that Chad met the strange child.

It started with a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye.

Chad paused on the gravel path, his heart thumping. He wasn’t afraid of the dark—not really—but his grandfather’s stories about the dangers of magic always crept into his mind when he was alone like this.

“Hello?” he called softly.

For a long moment, there was no answer. Then—

“Hello.”

The voice was light and musical, like wind chimes. Chad turned and saw a figure perched on the edge of the fountain, half-hidden by shadows. It was a child, he thought, but not quite.

At first, Chad thought they were a trick of the moonlight, all sharp angles and pale limbs, but then they turned their head.

Their eyes shone like glass, reflecting the light, and Chad froze.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Chad whispered.

The child grinned, baring sharp teeth. “Neither are you.”

They stood slowly, stepping into the moonlight. Their hair was tangled with leaves, and their skin shimmered faintly, like the surface of a pond.

Chad took an instinctive step back, but the child tilted their head, curious.

“You’re not scared,” they said, almost disappointed.

Chad swallowed. “Should I be?”

The child’s grin widened. “Most people are.”

“Who are you?” Chad asked.

The faerie tilted their head, smiling in a way that showed too many teeth. “Who are you ?”

Chad hesitated. He had been warned about faeries—tricksters, deceivers, predators. His grandfather had called them monsters disguised in beauty.

But he was so—

“I’m Chad,” he said at last. It wasn’t like it was his real name, anyway.

—curious.

The faerie’s smile widened as it took in his fine clothes. “A prince.”

Chad straightened his shoulders. “Yes.”

“What are you doing out here all alone, Prince Chad?”

“I like the garden at night,” he said simply.

The faerie tilted their head again, studying him. “So do I.”

They stood in silence for a while, the night humming around them. Chad felt strangely at ease, even as the faerie’s glowing eyes lingered on him.

”You aren’t very scared of me,” it noticed.

Chad considered the observation. “No,” he said.

“ Why?”

”I don’t know.” He didn’t. He should’ve been screaming, he should’ve been calling for help, but he…he didn’t feel very threatened at all.

The faerie let out a sharp laugh, but there was something almost pleased in it.

They hopped down from the fountain and stepped closer, their bare feet soundless on the gravel.

Chad stayed still, though some very distant instincts told him to move back.

The faerie reached out and touched his arm.

The moment their fingers brushed his skin, the faerie jerked back as if burned. Their glowing eyes went wide.

Chad let out a wordless noise of shock, as at that very moment, a sharp hum sang through his veins.

The fae didn’t answer. They just kept staring, their face pale and their lips slightly parted.

Chad felt the urge to step closer, but the faerie hissed and backed away.

The faerie stepped back again, their expression unreadable. “You have faerie magic attached to your blood.”

Chad blinked. “No, I don’t.”

“You do,” the faerie insisted. “It’s old and faint, but it’s there. That’s why I can’t…”

They trailed off, but Chad understood.

His heart didn’t race. Maybe there was something wrong with him.

“Why?” Chad asked. “Why is it there?”

The faerie studied him closely, their expression shifting into something wary but curious. “Someone must have claimed your family once. A powerful faerie. Blood ties don’t break.”

Chad’s mind reeled. He thought of his mother, of the fairy godmother from her stories—the one who had transformed pumpkins and mice and changed her fate forever.

“Is that bad?” he asked softly.

The faerie shook their head. “No. It means you’re…protected.”

The way they said the words, their lip curling with distaste, told Chad just how much they wished he wasn’t.

“Will I see you again?” He couldn’t stop wondering why the faerie was here, so close to the castle, so close to a kingdom that outlawed its very existence.

The creature’s glowing eyes dimmed slightly, and for the first time, they looked almost human. “No,” they said. “Not here. I’m only passing through…this place isn’t safe for me.”

Then the faerie stared into his eyes with unnerving intensity. “And soon, it won’t be safe for you either.”

Chad felt a shiver crawl down his spine. “What do you mean?”

But the faerie was already fading into the shadows, their bare feet silent on the grass.

“Wait!” Chad called again, but the faerie didn’t turn back.

Instead, their voice drifted out of the dark, light and sharp as the wind. They were singing in a language he didn’t understand—something high and haunting and undaunted by the tall looming castle and all its guards.

Then they were gone.

Chad didn’t tell anyone about the faerie. Not even his mother.

But sometimes, when he walked through the garden, he swore he could still hear their voice—soft and sharp, like the wind.

The argument started over something small. It always did.

Chad had been quiet during dinner, pushing food around his plate while his grandfather talked—another speech about duty, about legacy, about the dangers of magic and the monsters it bred.

It wasn’t the first time Chad had heard it. He had grown up with those words, hearing them so often that sometimes they echoed in his head even when he was alone.

But tonight, hearing those same words…remembering the faerie who had done so much for his family, and who had been shunned in return…something snapped.

“That’s not true,” Chad said, louder than he meant to.

His grandfather froze mid-sentence.

Cinderella looked up sharply from the other end of the table, her fork clinking against her plate. Chad’s father, Prince Charming, set his glass down with a soft thud, already tensing as if he knew what was coming.

“What did you say?” his grandfather asked, his voice low and dangerous.

Chad swallowed. He knew better than to keep going, but he couldn’t stop himself.

“Magic isn’t evil,” he said. “Not all of it.”

The words hung in the air, heavy and impossible to take back.

His grandfather rose slowly from his chair. He was an imposing man, broad-shouldered and towering even in old age, with sharp eyes that had been hardened by years of war and politics.

“You sound like your father,” he said, and the words were a blade.

Chad’s father didn’t flinch. He never did. But Chad saw the flicker of shame in his eyes and hated it.

“And what if I do?” Chad said, forcing himself to stand his ground. “What if you’re wrong about magic?”

His grandfather’s hand slammed down on the table, rattling the silverware.

“I am not wrong,” he thundered. “Do you think you know better than me? Than all the kings who fought to keep this land safe? You are a child, Chad. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, I do!” Chad shouted back. “I know you’re scared of magic because you don’t understand it! You think everything that’s different is dangerous—”

His grandfather’s hand struck him before he could finish.

The crack echoed through the hall, sharp and sudden.

Chad staggered back, his cheek stinging, his ears ringing. For a moment, the world felt too bright, too loud. He looked up at his grandfather’s face and saw no regret, no hesitation. Just anger.

“Enough,” his grandfather said, his voice like stone. “You’ll speak no more of this nonsense.”

Chad’s breath hitched. He wasn’t sure if it was from shock or fury. But before he could say anything, Cinderella’s voice cut through the silence, sharper than he’d ever heard it.

“Get away from him.”

She was already out of her chair, moving fast—faster than Chad had ever seen her move. Her blue gown flared as she crossed the room, placing herself between Chad and his grandfather.

Her eyes blazed with fury, and for the first time in his life, Chad saw what his mother looked like when she wasn’t trying to be kind.

“Ella—” his grandfather began.

“Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t say a word.”

He fell silent, and Chad stared, unable to believe it. His grandfather never backed down.

But his mother wasn’t finished.

“You will not touch my son,” she said. “Ever again.”

His grandfather’s jaw tightened. “He needs discipline—”

“He needs to get away from you,” Cinderella said coldly.

Chad’s father rose then, stepping to Cinderella’s side. “We’re leaving,” he said firmly.

“You can’t—”

“Yes,” Cinderella interrupted. “We can.”

Her voice softened only when she turned to Chad, kneeling in front of him to cup his face gently, brushing her thumb over the red mark on his cheek.

“Pack your things,” she said quietly. “You’re going to Auradon Prep.”

Chad blinked. “What?”

“You’ll be safe there,” she promised. “And away from this. ”

“But—”

“No buts.” Her voice wavered, just for a second. “I can’t let him hurt you. I won’t.”

He left the castle the next morning.

Cinderella and his father helped him pack, their movements quick but silent. Neither of them spoke much, though Chad saw the tears in his mother’s eyes when she hugged him goodbye.

“Be brave,” she whispered, holding him tightly. “Be kind. Remember that I love you so, so much, okay?”

He wanted to ask if she would be okay, but he couldn’t bring himself to. The words shriveled like leaves in the autumn wind.

“I will.”

And then he left, the castle fading behind him as the carriage rolled toward Auradon Prep.

He didn’t look back.

Chapter Text

The castle wasn’t really a castle—Evie learned that early. It was a crumbling ruin with cracked mirrors and velvet curtains faded to gray. The air here tasted of salt, and the wind howled more than it whispered.

Inside, the rooms were stark and cold, sparsely furnished with the remnants of Grimhilde’s former life: cracked mirrors, broken potions, and a faint smell of decay that no amount of cleaning could banish.

In the smallest of these rooms sat Evie, a child of no more than eight years, cross-legged on a fraying rug.

Before her lay her greatest treasure: her great-grandmother’s grimoire. It looked like a fragile thing, so aged the pages were more brown than yellow, but it was stronger than it looked. The cracked leather cover was soft against her fingertips, and the faint traces of magic clung to its pages like whispers of an old song.

Her great grandmother had written this book with pride, knowing it as the culmination of her life’s work. The script inside was spidery and elegant, filled with spells and incantations that Evie could only dream of casting.

By the dim light of a flickering lantern, Evie traced her fingers over the words, her lips moving silently as she tried to memorize each line. Her heart ached for the magic her ancestors had wielded, for the beautiful powers that were her birthright, but had been denied her.

She whispered to herself:
“ Ignis, lux, vita—light the dark, bring it to life… ”

Nothing happened, of course. The Isle’s barrier consumed every flicker of magic the moment it sparked, leaving only the weight of longing behind.

Still, she read on. Perhaps it was the blood in her veins, but she couldn’t look away.

“ She could conjure storms, ” Evie whispered as she traced a faded diagram of a whirlwind spell. Her voice was soft, almost reverent, as though speaking too loudly would scatter the ink.

She could almost feel the electricity humming through her. She pictured herself standing tall, a bolt of lightning racing through her blood. She pictured the flashing lights cutting through the dark, and the bellowing thunder.

In her dreams, she was a witch in her prime, in all the bloody, gory, mind-melting ways she could be.

She could do anything in these dreams.

She raised her hand, and stars fell from the fractured sky, bursting into showers of silver fire as they hit the ground.

She spoke a word she didn’t understand, and a forest of twisted trees erupted from the barren plain, their branches tangled and alive.

The shadows and light danced together at her command, twisting into shapes and figures—beautiful, terrible things she couldn’t quite comprehend.

She would always wake up heaving for breath. Her skin would be sticking to the sheets with cold sweat, and her lips would be bearing teeth in an involuntary, jagged grimace.

This was mine, she would think, desperate and bereft. This is supposed to be mine.

The castle wasn’t really a castle, but Grimhilde walked its halls like it was the grandest palace in the world, and Evie was expected to do the same.

“You must look presentable,” her mother said, tugging a brush through Evie’s hair until her scalp burned. “A princess must always look perfect, or they will not suffer your existence at court.”

Evie flinched but didn’t cry. She’d learned better.

What court? That was always the question. Grimhilde seemed to be under the delusion that Evie would leave the Isle someday, something Evie herself very much doubted.

Grimhilde’s hands were always cold, always precise, pinning up Evie’s hair and measuring out her waistline with her sharp, painted nails. She never raised her voice, but her words had a way of sinking under Evie’s skin and staying there.

“You’re lucky, you know. You’ll never be as beautiful as I was, but you might be pretty enough to get us by—if you work at it.”

Grimhilde rarely ate in front of her. She sipped at tea and bit into apples with dainty, careful bites, but she never finished them. “It’s all about control, darling. We can’t let ourselves go.”

So Evie started skipping meals. At first, it was to avoid her mother’s cutting remarks, but after a while, hunger became a familiar ache. It was easier to feel empty than to feel wrong.

The mirrors in the castle didn’t help. Grimhilde’s obsession with them bled into Evie’s veins like a sickness. She avoided looking at her reflection, but her mother never let her forget what she saw.

“Straighten your back. Shoulders down. Don’t pout—it makes your face look rounder.”

Evie pinched her cheeks red and practiced smiling until it hurt.

Sometimes, she dreamed about smashing the mirrors. She dreamed about taking a rock to the glass and shattering it all into glittering pieces.

But then her mother’s voice would creep into her thoughts— a princess must always look the part —and she’d wake up feeling like her skin didn’t fit right.

She told herself it was fine. She was fine. Her head would spin when she moved to fast, but she was okay. She could handle it.

The first time her knees buckled halfway up the stairs, Grimhilde didn’t help her up. She only looked down, eyes sharp and calculating. “You’re being dramatic.”

Evie avoided meeting her gaze and nodded. “Yes, Mother. I apologize.”

Once, when Evie was very young, she had asked Grimhilde about the grimoire. Her mother’s face had darkened like a storm rolling in.

“It’s useless,” Grimhilde had said, snatching the book from Evie’s small hands. “Do you think spells will save us? Do you think they will make you beautiful, strong, powerful?”

Evie had flinched at the venom in her mother’s voice. Grimhilde seemed to catch herself, her expression smoothing back into something unreadable. She traced the book’s leather cover as though it hurt to look at it.

“Don’t let me catch you flipping through this again.” The words were cold.

Evie’s mother always smelled like flowers. Maybe not the most common flowers for a perfume, though—Evie always thought her mother smelled a bit poisonous.

Evie clenched her fists. “I’m not wasting my time. I’m learning. Great-Grandmother’s spells—”

“Are useless,” Grimhilde snapped. “The barrier ensures that. You will never cast a spell on this Isle. All your studying is a child’s fantasy.”

The words cut deep, but Evie did not cry. She had learned long ago that tears would only bring more scorn.

Even now, in her humiliation, Evie’s jaw was clenched stubbornly. To agree would be tantamount to denying her soul.

Grimhilde sighed again, softer this time, and for a moment, something like sorrow flickered in her eyes. “I miss it too, you know,” she said, almost to herself. “The magic. The power. To look into a mirror and see the world bending to my will…”

Her voice trailed off, her dark eyes somehow more shadowed than before. She looked through Evie with such sadness that Evie felt she knew exactly what the older woman was seeing.

In her dreams, Evie summoned storms and grew entire ecosystems with little more than her own body’s life force, burning itself out like a star.

Sometimes in the dreams, she would catch a glimpse of her own face, and she could swear it was her mother staring back at her.

Grimhilde never hit her. Not with her hands, anyway.

But her words were worse. They cut sharper than glass and stuck under Evie’s skin, blooming there like poison.

“Straighten up—what would they think if they saw you slouching like that?”

“Is that what you’re wearing? Do you want them to laugh at you?”

“You’ll never be more than ordinary if you don’t work harder. Do you want to be ordinary?”

The words became a constant hum in Evie’s head, even when her mother wasn’t speaking. They followed her down hallways and echoed in the silence at night, curling up beside her like shadows that wouldn’t leave.

Sometimes she wished her mother would hit her, just once—because then maybe she’d have a bruise to prove it. Something to point to, something to explain the ache in her chest.

But there was nothing. The empty halls would echo with the sound of her every breath. Her hunger pains sounded like a beast below her rib cage.

Whenever she passed a mirror, she didn’t see a pretty girl. She saw a skull.

“You’re getting prettier every day,” Grimhilde once said in passing, tracing Evie’s cheekbones with her sharp, painted nails. “You have my blood in you, after all.”

Evie didn’t feel pretty. She felt brittle; breakable. Nothing like the powerful witch in her dreams, with strong limbs and an unbowed neck.

But when her mother smiled, she smiled back.

Someday, she whispered in the back of her mind, where all the mirrors twisted inward and allowed only honesty. Someday.

“To light a fire where no light burns…”

Evie’s heart clenched. Her small hands clutched the candle in front of her, its flame already flickering faintly. She whispered the words.

“ Ignis… Ignis… ”

Nothing happened, of course. The barrier choked the words to ash. But for the smallest moment, the candle’s flame seemed to burn just a little brighter, and in that moment, Evie let herself smile.

It didn’t matter if magic worked here or not. The words still felt alive on her tongue.

She picked up her needle and scraps once more, stitching a crescent moon into the hem of her dress. If she couldn’t cast magic with her hands, she would sew her spells into her seams, whispering wishes into every stitch.

Someday, someday , she thought, she would be free. And when she was, Evie would be ready.

Chapter Text

The more time Jay spent with the tiny Maleficent, the less he saw her as a terrifying fae princess, and the more he saw her as an enthusiastic puppy.

Oh, he still knew who she was (with her loyal entourage of aloof faerie companions, how could he forget?), but it was hard to be scared of her when she was just so excited to be his friend.

“So is it true humans can’t wield true names?” She seemed to hold her breath as she waited for the answer, endearingly forthcoming with all her emotions.

“Yes,” he admitted casually, swinging his cloth sack over his shoulder as they walked. “Humans don’t really have magic—well, not most of us. Witches are a different story.”

“Witches?” Mal blinked, catlike pupils flexing wider. Her eyes were a strange shade of green that he didn’t think he’d ever seen before. “What are…witches?”

One of Mal’s faerie friends sighed loudly and finally sidled right up beside them. They had been hanging back before, wary of their new human acquaintance.

Jay was surprisingly happy they seemed to get over their apprehension. Jay understood it—felt it, himself—but he didn’t like the nervous tension in the air.

“Am I to understand your mother hasn’t said a thing about witches to you?” The antlered fae narrowed her eyes in playful mockery.

Mal barked a laugh, and the inhuman sound still rose the hairs on the back of his neck. “My mother could have been teaching me of more important things—like how to rule a kingdom, how to conduct rituals, how to deal with annoying underlings—“

“Yes, yes,” said a blond-haired boy with the horns and lower half of a ram. “Funny, funny. But I distinctly remember Diaval saying he liked me more than you…”

“Dad isn’t a faerie,” Mal scoffed, but she didn’t seem upset. “He can lie.”

“Does he lie often?” Piped up a slightly younger girl with deep black hair and pale grey skin. She had eyes that were round, and unnervingly like that of a fish. “Because I heard from my mother that with humans, it’s like an addiction.”

Jay wanted to protest, but then he thought about it, and…he wasn’t exactly a paragon of truth-telling, and neither was anyone he knew.

“Not too often, and not seriously. He doesn’t try to hide that he’s lying. He just uses them to make jokes, or do surprises, and Mother hardly cares!”

What must it be like to have the Mistress of Evil as your mother? Jay never knew his mother, and his father wasn’t the warm and fuzzy type, to say the least. Did Maleficent love Mal?

“What are they like?” He finally asked, clearing his throat when the all the faerie childrens’ attention landed on him. “Your parents, I mean.”

Mal actually seemed to think about her answer.

“Well Dad is…hm. He’s very nice, but he’s not a faerie and sometimes the rest of the courts aren’t very nice to him. Mother keeps them in check.”

A dull pain in his chest. An old ache—maybe his oldest.

“And what’s your mother like?”

The other faeries watched, curious, a few of their ears flicking up.

“Grumpy. She’s nice though, you just have to get to know her! Like a cat!”

Jay stared. “I have never met a cat, Mal.”

Mal laughed, sharp and cutting, and he stopped himself from wincing this time. Then she sighed, pursing her lips.

“Odd questions to ask me, don’t you think? We’ve only just met.”

“If your parents weren’t who they were, I’d be less curious,” he admitted.

Mal hummed and started marching through the brush.

As they walked, the sound of Mal’s sharp laughter still hung in the air, though the tension had lessened somewhat.

His heartbeat had calmed, but at any second he knew that could change.

One moment, she was just an excited, unpredictable friend with a wild streak. The next, she had her fae companions—their strange features and disconcerting gazes—hanging on her every word.

It made Jay feel like he was walking a fine line between the human world he knew and the vast, wild world of the fae he’d always been told to fear.

The faerie kids kept up their distance, as usual, but Jay didn’t mind it much. The sound of leaves crunching underfoot, the occasional flicker of wings in the corner of his vision—it wasn’t so bad.

“Are you escorting me out of the forest, or further in?” He knew the answer even as he asked the question, but he wanted to see how she’d respond.

Mal shot him a mischievous look over her shoulder, her lips curling into a playful smile. “Does it matter?” she teased, her voice more reminiscent of a trilling bird than a speaking girl.

She didn’t stop walking, but the way her head tilted slightly told him she was watching him out of the corner of her eye.

Jay smirked despite himself, catching her drift. “Guess not, but it’s just—” He hesitated, then shrugged, choosing honesty over anything else. “I was told never to come into these woods. They’re dangerous for people like me.”

“So they are. But you came in here anyway, you might as well come see my home!”

A whisper came from his left, just behind him. It was the fish-eyed girl.

“Not like anyone could tell you no.”

“Her mother could,” countered a sleek-haired girl with dark symbols etched into her skin. Her eyes were strange—more to the sides of her face, like a deer.

Mal visibly shook off the words, her wings ruffling with the motion. “She wouldn’t care too much! Look at him! Does he look like he stands a chance against even one fae?”

There was a small pause, and then they all shook their heads, muttering in appeasement.

“Yeah, no, we’re definitely safe.”

Jay tried not to take it too personally.

As they continued further, he couldn’t help but notice how easily Mal moved through the forest, weaving between the trees with a fluidity that seemed almost unnatural.

He, on the other hand, stumbled more than once, his feet catching on roots, his breath coming a little faster than he’d like to admit.

Her companions were already ahead, moving with that uncanny, eerie precision.

“They might not have their magic, but they sure don’t need it to show off ,” he muttered under his breath, hoping none of them heard.

Mal’s laugh floated back to him, and this time, there was no hiding the genuine amusement in her voice, or the pride in her spine. “Most humans think magic is all we are. That’s why they don’t fear us as much as they should, these days.“

“Their mistake,” he muttered, meaning it completely.

He had to work twice as hard to keep pace, every branch that snapped underfoot or gust of wind in his face a reminder of just how much more effortless everything was for her.

The faint scent of flowers and earth lingered in the air, carried on the breeze, and though his hearing and sight weren’t bad, he couldn’t help but wonder how much more he’d notice if he were fae—how much more he’d understand about the world around him.

The further they ventured, the denser the forest became. The towering trees seemed to bend toward them, their gnarled roots twisting like fingers reaching for the sky.

Today was the first time Jay had ever been in a forest, and what little he knew he’d only heard from gossip or battered pages of thrown-out textbooks from Auradonian trash. None of it could have prepared him.

The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and moss, and the distant calls of unseen creatures echoed through the undergrowth. The world here was darker, more wild—untamed in a way that Jay couldn’t quite explain.

Mal led the way, still as carefree as ever, her light footsteps barely making a sound as she moved through the underbrush. Her eyes glowed with excitement, and she didn’t seem to notice how the atmosphere had shifted. Maybe for her, it hadn’t.

“Do all humans breathe this loudly when they walk,” the girl with markings on her skin teased, glancing back with a playful grin. Her eyes glittered like the forest around them.

Jay wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and tried not to sound out of breath when he spoke. “I’ll have you know that I am quite actually quite strong for a human my age!”

“Depressing,” she shot back drily, and then sprinted ahead, leaving him in the dust.

One of the other fae—the one with the ram horns—started to laugh very quietly. Jay only heard him because he happened to be close by.

“Wow.” Mal slowed down to look at him strangely. “She’s warming up to you.”

Jay flushed. “What, really?”

“Don’t look so pleased,” said Mal, face souring. “I’m still your first faerie friend, remember?”

“And soon, once he knows us all better, I will be his favorite!” The ram-horned boy said sunnily.

The trees grew taller and wider, their trunks twisting in unnatural patterns, the thick canopy above blocking out most of the sunlight. The leaves shimmered in strange colors, reflecting the faint light in a way that made everything look dreamlike and hazy.

Eventually, they came upon the edge of a clearing, and Jay could see what he had only heard whispered of—the fae settlement.

It wasn’t like any village he’d ever seen. The buildings weren’t made of wood or stone, but living trees—massive trunks that spiraled upward, their branches weaving together to create platforms and walkways. Some of the trees had houses built right into them, with walls of woven vines and leaves.

“How could you build that without magic?”

“Nature is still ours,” said Mal softly. “The trees are quiet, here, but still ours.”

The settlement was high above the ground, suspended in the treetops, and Jay couldn’t help but gawk at the intricate network of bridges and pathways stretching between the trees. It felt like stepping into a fairy tale, a world that existed completely apart from anything he had ever known.

Mal walked ahead confidently, as though this were second nature to her, but Jay couldn’t help but feel like the outsider he was.

His eyes darted around, taking in the fae who lived here—mostly children, he noticed, though there were a few adults watching from the branches above.

The children greeted Mal eagerly as she arrived, running to her side, some of them clinging to her arms, others chattering excitedly.

Jay hung back, trying to avoid drawing attention to himself, but his presence was already causing a stir.

The fae adults, who had been watching from the shadows, began to take notice of him. Their eyes narrowed as they assessed him, the tension in the air palpable.

One of the adults—a tall fae with sharp features and silver hair—stepped forward, his wings unfurling with a soft rustle. His gaze fixed on Jay, and his eyes seemed to flicker with something that might have been suspicion.

“Who’s this?” The voice was smooth but cold, like polished stone.

Mal didn’t seem phased. She threw a mischievous grin in Jay’s direction. “Oh, this is Jay. No need for a welcome feast, we can make do!”

She laughed lightly, as if to make a joke of it, but there was a strange edge to her tone that Jay couldn’t quite place.

The fae with silver hair didn’t respond immediately, his expression unreadable. Behind him, a few more fae emerged from the shadows—some with pointed ears, others with strange, animal-like features, their wings folded tightly against their backs.

They watched Jay with the same quiet wariness, and Jay felt their gazes land on him like stones.

“You brought a human into our territory, Mal.” The silver-haired fae’s voice was cool, but it carried an unspoken authority. “Does your mother know of this?”

“Do I know of what?”

There was a shift in the forest to his left, and he turned—they all turned—to see Maleficent, queen of the faeries, emerge from the shadows.

She stepped into the clearing with all the grace and power of a storm gathering on the horizon. Her figure loomed tall and imposing, the black and green of her cloak shimmering like a shadowed reflection of the forest itself.

Her horns curled more elegantly than Mal’s, which now seemed more unruly in comparison.

Her face, sharp and angular, was inhumanly beautiful, more so than any other fae he’d seen.

The other faeries, who had been watching with silent wariness, immediately straightened. Even Kieran, the silver-haired fae, stilled, his expression shifting ever so slightly, like the air had changed.

Jay’s heart thudded loudly in his chest as Maleficent’s eyes swept over them all with slow deliberation, her gaze cold and piercing.

The children, who had been pulling Jay eagerly toward the heart of the settlement, stopped in their tracks, watching with bright eyes. They didn’t seem afraid, it was just like Maleficent was the center of their world.

(And really, wasn’t she? The faerie queen, high fae, queen of the moors, their leader who protected them with her sweat and blood and tears?)

Maleficent’s gaze landed on Mal first, her expression unreadable. Then, she shifted her focus to Jay. Her eyes flickered over him, studying him with the same calculating detachment she had turned on the others.

“Well, well,” Maleficent’s voice was smooth, like silk and iron, and when she spoke, it was as though the world itself was compelled to listen. “A human.”