Return to the Isle of the Lost
Read Return to the Isle of the Lost Online
Authors: Melissa de la Cruz
DESCENDANTS
The Isle of the Lost
THE BLUE BLOODS SERIES
Blue Bloods
Masquerade
Revelations
The Van Alen Legacy
Keys to the Repository
Misguided Angel
Bloody Valentine
Lost in Time
Gates of Paradise
The Ring and the Crown
Copyright © 2016 by Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Cover design by Marci Senders
Cover art by James Madsen
Hand lettering by Russ Gray
All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Control Number: 2016932666
ISBN 978-1-4847-7629-2
Visit
www.DisneyBooks.com
Chapter 1: Tale as Old as Time
Chapter 3: Scorch in the Stone
Chapter 4: Never Read the Comments
Chapter 7: Friends of the Round Table
Chapter 10: Energy = Magic Squared?
Chapter 11: A Wish Is a Dream Your Heart Makes
Chapter 12: Castlecoming Queens
Chapter 14: My Boyfriend’s Back
Chapter 19: The Mists of Auradon
Chapter 22: Needle in a Haystack
Chapter 23: Down the Rabbit Hole
Chapter 25: One More Fairy Tale
Chapter 27: Anti-Heroes’ Secret
Chapter 28: The Sorcerer’s Apprentices
Chapter 30: Seeds of Temptation
Chapter 34: Underwater Epiphany
Chapter 39: Metropolitan Labyrinth
Chapter 45: Happily Ever After, for Now at Least
For Mattie,
my hero
And the
C.H. Class of 2025,
Go Vikings!
“I’ve got the most
brilliant idea!”
—Prince Ben,
The Isle of
the Lost
O
nce upon a time, after all the happily-ever-afters, when all the fairy tales were supposed to have ended, came a new beginning when the teenage children of the most evil villains in the land were sent from the remote Isle of the Lost to the majestic kingdom of Auradon.
As you surely have heard, Mal, Evie, Jay, and Carlos, the descendants of Maleficent, Mistress of Darkness; Evil Queen, infamous for her sleep-inducing apples; Jafar, grand vizier of avarice; and Cruella de Vil, harridan extraordinaire, were sent far from home to learn how to be good.
After childhoods spent learning to be just the opposite, the villains, being villains, had other intentions.
Mal and her friends were tasked by their evil parents to fetch Fairy Godmother’s wand and use its power to return the villains to their former glory and rain vengeance on their enemies.
However, after arriving in Auradon, these young villains were soon flummoxed by the friendliness of the natives and the abundance of sugary treats in this new land. They found themselves struggling between carrying out their sinister mission and enjoying their new, deliciously cookie-filled life.
Were they falling in love with Auradon while plotting its demise? Mal was certainly falling for someone—the handsome prince of her dreams, Prince Ben, whom she’d spelled into falling in love with her, only to realize she didn’t need magic to capture his heart. Ben was as smitten as she was, and there was more to him than his brilliant smile, for he also had the heart of a king.
When the time came for Mal and her friends to make their move on Fairy Godmother’s wand during Prince Ben’s Coronation, it was not Mal who grabbed it and caused the chaos that followed, but Fairy Godmother’s own daughter, Jane. As the invisible barrier over the Isle of the Lost shattered, magic returned to the villains in full force, allowing Maleficent to escape. The evil fairy turned into a fire-breathing dragon, terrorizing all of Auradon, determined to claim the wand as her own.
But Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay stood together, and it was Mal who won the battle and wielded the wand. In the end, her power for good was greater than her mother’s talent for evil.
Mal and her friends are back at their studies at Auradon Prep…and Maleficent is now a tiny lizard, reduced to the size of her heart.
And this is where our story begins….
“Like all
dreams, well,
I’m afraid this
can’t last forever.”
—Fairy Godmother,
Cinderella
I
f Mal had to pick what she liked most about Auradon, it would be hard to choose just one thing. She could probably spend a whole day cataloging everything that didn’t stink about her new school. For one, it wasn’t housed in a smelly, damp dungeon like Dragon Hall back in the Isle. For another, it was a surprise to find she actually enjoyed learning about a variety of subjects instead of just plotting evil schemes. She was particularly fond of her art classes, where she happily painted canvases full of mysterious foggy landscapes and gloomy dark castles instead of the peaceful sunsets and still lifes of fruit favored by the rest of the class. Why anyone would want to paint something as boring as a bowl of fruit, Mal would never understand.
She was sitting at a long table in the great room in Auradon Prep’s library, a cheerful, bright space with high ceilings and banners with the school colors hanging from the ceiling. Mal was trying to do homework for a change, but was too distracted by the people-watching as students kept filing in and out between classes. Plus, her Goodness Appreciation essay was putting her to sleep. So she looked out the floor-to-ceiling library windows instead, at the manicured lawns where she played croquet (well, made fun of people playing croquet might be more accurate) and the patch of shady oak trees where she and her friends often ate lunch.