I blinked, attempting to register my surroundings. It was just too dark. I could make out the low fog settled around my feet as I stumbled forward. It almost glowed, a light blue-ish, green-ish color.

There were murmurs up ahead. People.

In my hazy determination to find them, I ran directly into something. The top half of my body fell forward, catching myself on the edges of the cauldron.

The steam that emanated from it blurred my vision as I pushed myself away from it. The water inside bubbled and boiled, the same sickly color as the fog around me. As I rubbed my eyes, I approached once more, getting a better look inside.

Bobbing across the top, were dozens of ripe, red apples.

"W-" I could hear someone whisper in the distance. "I-C-"

I turned on my heel, but the sound came from everywhere, surrounding me.

"K-"

I tried to run away from the cauldron, but the minute I was around one, I ran into another.

"E-D."

I kept running, doing my best to dodge cauldrons and skip over the fallen apples that littered the floor. In a blink, I found myself running through the halls of Auradon Prep.

They were empty. Along the way, a few apples were discarded on the ground, all with single bites in them.

Across the lockers that lined the school, in large purple letters, were the words: LONG LIVE EVIL.

That was my work. It had to be. And my paint.

"Mother always knows best," the quiet voice came back.

I dashed out of the hallway and down the stairs towards the front of the school.

It was too empty. Too quiet. And too messy.

"Show her. Pass every test."

The entrance to the school was a mess. Apples and papers everywhere. The Beast statue was defaced with spray paint.

"Hear her voice in your head."

And flying high over the school was a new flag. An old design which I had long since discarded. A silhouette of my mother, the words 'Long Live Evil' in green on a purple background.

"Evil is the only real way to win," the voice beckoned me.

My hands were holding me up, pressed against the Beast statue at the front of Auradon Prep.

I noticed multiple familiar faces within the crowd of paparazzi. Hadn't they learned their lesson? Hadn't any of them?

I had been known to shriek, break down, and run off while on camera. A result of sensory overload most often, but it could also be triggered by… uncomfortable questions.

All of my friends had become experts in the art of avoiding paparazzi specifically for this reason. They knew I was still healing and god was it hard to heal when you were also the girlfriend of the king.

So, sometimes, when I needed to be by myself, I wandered alone and that's almost always where they found me. Photographers and interviewers all desperately looking for a brief word right when I needed space.

They weren't the best on timing.

"Only three days to the Royal Cotillion!" a young woman exclaimed, shoving a mic at my face. I wasn't exactly sure what she wanted me to say in response to that, so I nodded, smiling tightly.

"Ever think that a girl like you would be a Lady of the Court?"

I blinked, temporarily blinded by a particularly close shot at my face.

"How do you feel being the most envied girl in Auradon?"

I scoffed, but was bombarded with more questions.

"Okay! All right!" I could hear Ben exclaim, pushing his way through the crowd towards me. I sighed in relief, glad to know that someone would be able to get me out of there. "Excuse me."

He held a half eaten apple in his hand, which looked suspiciously similar to the ones in my dream. That had been a common occurrence recently: deja vu.

He wrapped an arm around me the minute he reached me. He had on one of his signature blue suits with a gold handkerchief. I quickly turned into his shoulder to regain my composure while the crowd turned on him.

"Did you ever think you'd be with a Villain Kid?"

Ben and I both whipped around to look at the woman who had asked. I bit down tightly on the inside of my cheek as Ben chuckled next to me. Multiple people had gone silent, waving mics in Ben's face to pick up his answer.

"We're done here," he responded politely, grabbing me from the opposite shoulder and leading me away from the cameras.

In a whirl, with perfect timing, as always, Fairy Godmother took command of the cameras, preventing them from following the two of us as we left and asking them to make their exit.

"You feeling alright?" he automatically asked, running a hand over my back.

"Fine," I said, quickly. "A little overwhelmed, but I'll be alright."

"You sure?"

I nodded. "It gets frustrating at times. Sometimes I wonder if they say some of those things just to get a reaction out of me. They want to watch me break and be the villain my mother was."

"Don't pay any attention to them."

"Well, that's a lot easier said than done, right?"

"I know, I know," he sighed. "You know, maybe we should do something. We should go somewhere. Get away."

While I appreciated the suggestion, I was so tired that when I thought of getting away, that included getting away from Ben. I wanted to just have some time to myself again. Some privacy again. I hadn't seen a moment alone practically since I had gotten off the island.

"Yeah," I replied halfheartedly, but he didn't even seem to notice, distracted by his own watch.

"I have a council meeting. I'm so late!" His face pinched in stress. I knew he didn't want to leave me here, especially after just promising some time to ourselves, but he had responsibilities.

"That's okay," I told him. I had gotten really good at pretending like things were totally fine, the Auradon way. On the Isle, if I was upset, I would hide it underneath my anger, but here I had to smile and act like a feather when bricks were weighing me down.

"We'll do it sometime!" He promised, leaning down to kiss my cheek, but he hadn't made contact before someone else was dragging me away.

"If we don't do a fitting for your gown right this minute, you'll be dancing in your bathrobe, okay?" Evie insisted.

Turns out everyone was stressed, because Evie was never so forward unless something needed to be done. In fact, she was rather efficient nowadays, but all that meant was piling on more work than she needed because she could power through it.

"Hi!" She smiled at Ben, sort of an apology for stealing me away, but if I knew Evie, she was well aware that Ben had stuff to do anyways. "Let's go. Let's go!" she sang to me, dragging me towards the dorms.

"Bye, Ben!" I called.

"Bye."

I stumbled after her, trying to keep up in my heels. Evie was so well adapted to the formal, princess life (mostly because her mother had been teaching her she was royalty since she was a girl) that I looked like peasantry in her presence.

Once we had made it to the dorm rooms, she pulled down the pieces she had made of my dress and had me start fitting sections on.

It was yellow, with blue sequins and accents across the top and down the skirt. Evie had chosen it so that I would match Ben and fit the "Beauty and the Beast" aesthetic of all the events.

Evie began the process of pinning and marking the edges of the dress to be hemmed, where she would close up the back of the dress and tighten the waist. I stood still, my thoughts drifting, as they normally did when Evie forced me up onto her dress stand.

The dress was huge. I couldn't imagine getting out the door, much less dancing for hours in it. Evie was fairly accommodating to my needs when it came to her designs, but there was also a certain standard that my outfits were expected to meet. I couldn't just wear anything to a ball like this. Eyes would be on me at all times and I had to look traditional. I had to fit in. The people of Auradon were just jumping for an excuse to make me look bad.

Evie pulled me from my thoughts as she forced my shoulders back, so that the dress would fit me correctly.

I squealed a moment, in shock, but I was cut off when Evie pulled the corset together in back and pinned it there, squeezing my rib cage uncomfortably.

"Okay, Evie? I cannot breathe."

She stepped around me, going back to her work table. "Well then, you can breathe after Cotillion." I glared at her and she shrugged. "It won't stay up unless it's tight, M."

"I sincerely doubt that I'll ever be allowed to breathe again," I grumbled. "I have at least twenty events directly behind it and I can't remember what a single one of them is."

Evie walked around me, pulling out the bottom of the dress to get a good look at it in full.

"Impeccable," she smiled to herself.

I was glad Evie was getting some sort of satisfaction for her work. I mean, she was constantly designing and sewing dresses now and they always turned out amazing. Everyone was thrilled with her efforts and she was getting paid.

Not to mention, despite all the stress it caused her, especially right now, with the Cotillion so close, she was happy. She loved making dresses for others. It brought her peace and made her feel like she was doing some good for others. And she got to hang out with her new boyfriend, Doug, as she worked.

My eyes drifted away and I noticed my old leather jacket on the coat rack by the door.

I'm not sure why I kept it. I didn't wear it anymore. Frankly, I couldn't. My outfits nowadays were kind of expected to reach a level of sophistication. But the two green dragons, twisted into a heart, left a familiar sense of calm.

"Evie?"

"Hm?"

"Do you ever think about what we'd be doing if we were back on the Isle right now?"

I regretted the words the minute they left my mouth.

These dreams I'd been having were unsettling to me. I had read up on reoccuring dreams and how it's believed they are predicting something. And that terrified me. Not just the empty school and the vandalism and apples, but the fact that my mother was somehow involved in all of it.

"Why do you ask?" she said, seriously.

It was upsetting. Sometimes I felt like everything was going too fast and no one was giving me space. And then the minute I admitted this, I was being babied. My mother had died almost a year ago and still, no one dared mention her name around me.

I just wish I had some time to truly find myself. Once we had abandoned the Isle, the four of us had basically lost any sense of identity we previously had. We were no longer the leader, the thief, the flirt, and the snake.

Evie and Jay had truly found their calling. Evie could practically make a living for herself at this point and Jay was looking into universities to continue playing Tourney at. And Carlos wasn't completely set yet, but he was relaxed, still messing around with different types of tech and looking after Dude.

I was just trying to survive.

"I'm fine," I replied, stepping down from the pedestal.

Evie didn't say anything, turning back towards her work table. I figured she was done at this point and was about to ask her to help me get the dress off when I saw a book on my nightstand, titled The Lady's Manners.

I gasped rushing over to grab it. I was supposed to run through all of this a week ago, but it had completely slipped my mind. Ben had given it to me to prepare for the Cotillion, seeing as it would be a massively covered event and his parents would be present.

Luckily, my spellbook was also on hand and I had the precise spell for this already marked. "Read it fast, at lightning speed. Remember everything I need," I recited.

Quickly, I transferred the spell on to the book of manners and began flipping through the pages, running my eyes down the lines to grab any information I could.

"I know Mal's secret to fitting in and Ben wouldn't like it one bit," Evie scolded beside me.

I sent a quick glare in her direction, then continued my skimming.

"Haven't you guys had enough secrets between the two of you already?"

I rolled my eyes. "What's the harm, E? These girls around school have had their whole lives to study and learn the ways of a 'lady'. I've had a couple of months. You saw how I was before I started to use magic and it wasn't good. I was a disaster. I was a shame to Ben and everything his family stands for."

"You were recovering," she insisted. "But now, you've been talking to therapists, you're getting your head back on your shoulders, and personally, I strongly believe that this spellbook-" she reached into my lap and took it from me, "-belongs in the museum along with my mirror."

"Well, it's hard to act like a person when no one treats you like one," I grumbled.

"What do you mean?"

I shrugged off the question, changing to subject. "You don't ever miss running wild?"

"Stealing, and lying, and fighting?"

"Yeah," I sighed. "Don't you miss the freedom of it all?"

"No!" she exclaimed. "M, why would we? Look at us! We're happy! We're in Auradon! Where is all of this coming from?"

I shook my head. "Nowhere. Just… wondering."

"If that's true," she answered, briefly squeezing my hand, "then can we please just leave the past in the past?"

I looked into Evie's eyes as she said that and deeply felt sorry for saying anything. Evie was doing her best to comfort me and make sure that I was alright, but she had some deep scars from the Isle herself. She didn't want to talk about it unless she had to.

So, I just nodded solemnly.