Madder than a Hatter (Descendants)

Magic and Mayhem (Edited)

"You don't have to leave," I said hopefully, and felt my hopes crushed under the heel of an unforgiving high heel as Lonnie shook her head.

"I haven't seen my mom in months," she told me. "I really, really want to go home for a visit, anyway. And I won't have time to for a while if I don't go now. Maybe you could come next time."

"Yeah, maybe." I watched her finish packing her bags. "When will you be back?"

"I'm not sure. A month, maybe two. I'll tell you when I know."

"Okay. I'll see you when you get back, but I'll text you updates of any shenanigans that I may or may not get into over the course of your visit. I promise I won't break any rules, whether they are school rules or laws. I'll eat real food every day, listen to authority, and behave myself. Wait, you don't particularly care for authority, do you?"

"Don't make me worry about you," she warned, but I knew she was joking.

"I won't. Have a good time and say hi to your mom for me."

"I will. Bye, Maddie."

"Bye, Lonnie."

We'd broken up a few days prior, but we were still good friends. We'd decided we were better off as companions than girlfriends, and that the experience was nice and had been worth having. I was a little sad about it, but I was completely happy just being friends with her. It also meant no one could play the girlfriend card on me.

"Have fun," I said, but she was already gone.

I was doing something absolutely worrying, and it was giving me a nosebleed. I was also breaking school rules, but considering I'd graduated earlier that week, it didn't really matter.

I was practicing magic by the Enchanted Lake, since the water was sort of a Magic-B-Gone thing, and if I lost control of anything I could just throw myself into the water or something.

What little magic I had was tied to the cards, which probably meant that they were magical objects bonded to me so I could manipulate them. It was highly unlikely that I had any magic of my own, which was a little disappointing, but made sense.

Neither of my parents were magical beings. My mother was a queen and my father was a hatmaker with an absurd amount of rusted conformateurs. By being creatures of Wonderland, a place full of magic and nonsense, it would stand to what little reason there was that I could manipulate magical items with less-than-relative ease.

Whatever magic was in the cards seemed to be solely focused on keeping the cards in good shape until I poked at it. Then it allowed me to unravel the strings holding it together and puppeteer them. If I wanted to, I could throw them like knives, although that would potentially damage the cards.

That was literally all I could do.

That was it.

It was actually kind of funny. I mean, I didn't need magic at all in my day-to-day life, so it wasn't like I was missing something I had inside me all along. It was just a fun little trick to practice.

When I eventually got tired of dorking around with the cards, I put them back in their box and pulled out the phone Lonnie practically begged me to get. I'd started putting things in my calendar to remember them without having to memorize dates.

I checked my plans for the week and noticed I'd marked that Jane's birthday party was coming up, to be held at this very lake. Good for her. I should start having birthday parties again. And unbirthday parties. After all, it was my unbirthday today, and tomorrow, and throughout the whole week, and for the next few months, actually.

As I was setting a reminder to celebrate my unbirthday, a text came in from Ben, asking where I was. It was then that I remembered that the new kids from the Isle were being picked up today, and it was sort of a thing that I had to be there.

Mal, Evie, Jay, Carlos and I had gone out last week to visit the Isle, with me choosing not to participate in yet another song-and-dance number (seriously, what is with all the dubstep in the songs these people sing? I don't even do stuff as weird as this) and selecting four new children to attend Auradon Prep.

The children chosen were Dizzy, granddaughter of Lady Tremaine; Celia, the youngest daughter of Dr. Facilier; and Squeaky and Squirmy, the twins sons of Mr. Smee. They were good choices, and I didn't really have an opinion on most of them. Apparently, Dizzy was like a little sister to Evie, though, so that was nice for them.

Also, Hades had tried to escape, almost getting through the barrier, forcing Mal to turn into a dragon to blast him back, but that wasn't really important.

I hurried back to the school campus as fast as I could, which involved a lot of meandering, side quests, getting distracted, fighting a squirrel, getting lost, being forced to backtrack, and finally managing to get to the school, right as Ben went down on one knee in front of everyone.

(Now, if it was me, personally, I would've said no, only because of how freaking public it was. Give the girl room to breathe if she wants to say no! She's, like, eighteen, for crying out loud!)

Mal said yes, though. It was very emotional. She seemed to be very happy about it, which was good for her. I wondered what the engagement party would look like.

Audrey, however, was not very happy about it, but her grandmother seemed much more upset about the engagement than she did. She seemed more downtrodden than sad, which kind of hurt my heart for a moment.

"Hey, Audrey," I said.

She turned to see who had spoken and half-sneered when she saw it was me. "What, Maddie?"

"I'm sorry that things turned out like this for you," I said sincerely. "But if Ben was willing to go out with someone without even telling you first, then he probably wasn't the right guy for you. I know that it was a life goal of yours to marry him, but you both would've been miserable."

She scowled. "You don't know that."

"You're right, I don't know that. But you don't know either. You don't know what your future would've looked like if you two stayed together. But I am genuinely sorry that you're upset. You deserve better."

Audrey looked like she was either going to scream at me or cry, but instead she swallowed heavily, lifted her chin up, and said, "I don't need your pity."

"It's not pity. I don't pity people, and I certainly wouldn't pity you. This is sympathy."

"I don't want your sympathy, either."

"Okay. I can't say I didn't try. I hope your future is everything you want."

She didn't dignify that with a response and chose to leave instead. I couldn't blame her. If the supposed love of my life just proposed to the girl who stole her from me, I would've been a little upsetti spaghetti too.

There wasn't much time to dwell on that, though. It was time to head to the Isle. I was not looking forward to going back.

This was going to be something.