OKAY, SO I’M PRETTY SURE THOSE TWO SHADOWS the Evil Queen passed in the mist on her way to Monster High were Frankie and Draculaura. But how did that happen? We’d better jump back an hour. Again. Last time—I promise!⁴¹

41 Not saying I anymore. Nope. Not gonna do it. Totally a professional Narrator, thank you very much.

Oh look, Frankie is on the roof of Monster High. She isn’t usually afraid of heights, but the roof of Monster High is all turrets and towers and spires, which look great from a distance, but when you are trying to climb them in lace-up platform wedges, it’s less “My, but isn’t that interesting architecture?” and more “AAAHHH!!!”⁴²

42 Sorry, Reader. That sentence was a little long.

She’s just attached a thick cable to a lightning rod atop the east tower when she slips. “Wha… wha… whoaaa!” she yells.

She grabs the cable to slow her slide and comes to a squeaking halt at the point where roof meets sky and fifteen meters of nothing open up below her.

The seams on her left wrist pop, and her hand continues down without her.

“No!” she yells.

But just then a bat streaks out an open window and catches the hand. The bat dips down a bit with the weight of the hand, but keeps flying; then it wheels around and goes back inside.

Frankie drops onto a ledge and slides in through the open window of the Mad Science lab just in time to see the bat embiggen back into Draculaura.

“Here, you dropped this,” says Draculaura, tossing the hand.

“Thanks,” says Frankie. “As your dad would say, you really took me by the hand. I’ve got to hand it to you, Drac. You had the upper hand, but, you know, even without my left hand, I was all right—”

Draculaura tosses a pillow at her.⁴³ “What were you doing up there, anyway? Why’d you want to meet me in here?”

43 Weird—why is there a pillow in the Mad Science lab?

“To help figure out this Ever After thing,” Frankie says.

“By roof jumping?”

“Ha! Not my plan,” Frankie says. “I want to enhance the Mapalogue.”

Frankie leans out the window. No cable in sight. She places her detached hand on the bricks and watches it climb back up the wall like a spider. As soon as it’s out of sight, she closes her eyes to concentrate, feeling her hand reach the edge of the roof and climb up. This is the trick with controlling body parts that aren’t attached to you—unless they are eyeballs. Then you can’t see what you are doing.

At last, Frankie senses the long, smooth bump of the cable and has her hand grab hold and leap over the edge. Through the window, Frankie catches it with her other hand and pulls in both hand and cable.

“This is an electrical cable,” she says, stitching her hand back on and then deftly peeling individual strands of wire from the cable bundle. “And the other end is connected to the lightning rod on the roof.”

Draculaura gestures to an outlet on the wall of the Mad Science lab. “We do have normal electricity.”

Frankie glances sidelong at the outlets. “I don’t trust them. The power is dodgy—the voltage is too low. Besides, lightning is more reliable—at least if you’re me and you can feel when it’s coming. Which is”—Frankie tastes the air, examines the little hairs on her arms, and sniffs—“in ninety seconds.”

“I brought the Mapalogue, like you asked,” says Draculaura. “I set it on that metal table thingy dangling by chains from the ceiling.”

“The It’s-Alive-o-Tron?” Frankie says.

“That’s what that table is called?” Drac asks, taking a step back. “‘The Saliva-Tron’? Gross. Is there spit on it?”

“The It’s. Alive. O. Tron,” Frankie says, clamping the cable to the Mapalogue.

“I’m kidding,” Draculaura says, putting an arm around Frankie’s shoulders. “Sorry, I’m teasing. I’m just…”

She shrugs, but Frankie can read the expression without any words. Draculaura is joking around because she feels nervous. Scared about whatever Frankie is going to do. Frankie straightens, determination heating her bones, warming her muscles. She will not let Draculaura down.

“So the lightning should, like, jump-start the Mapalogue with a jolt of electricity,” says Frankie. “I’m hoping that with more power we can get it to expand the area where it works and find this Ever After High.” She licks her finger and holds it up as if checking for a breeze. “Fifteen seconds.”

The girls hold the Skullette and look at the spot on the map that says EVER AFTER HIGH.

“Just like before?” Draculaura asks.

“Just like before,” Frankie says. “But this time, with lightning.”

“Exsto monstrum the principal of Ever After High.” They speak the commanding words just as lightning strikes. The electricity shoots through the cable, into the Mapalogue, up to the Skullette, and into the girls. They buzz with shock, the Skullette sparks, and the Mapalogue glows.

“Aaaah!” says Drac, her pink-streaked black hair standing two feet up from her head.

“Hold on!” says Frankie.

A shudder, a whoosh, and they’re shooting through darkness. Frankie feels as if someone has grabbed her by her stomach and yanked her forward, the rest of her body following a second later. Her limbs vibrate, and her head leans back as if she’s moving at an incredible speed, but she can see nothing until a shadow, sparking with black-and-green energy, flits across her vision.⁴⁴

44 The Evil Queen! That was totally the Evil Queen!

As suddenly as the Mad Science lab around them vanishes, it is replaced by a view of a beautiful fountain of crystal-clear water, a shining fairytale castle behind it. Frankie and Draculaura clatter to the cobblestoned ground. Frankie looks up into an unfamiliar face.

It belongs to a tall, round-bellied man with gray hair, a fancy blue suit, and a mustache that doesn’t quite meet in the middle. Milton Grimm, the headmaster of Ever After High, is staring at Frankie and Draculaura as if they have popped out of thin air. Which, Frankie supposes, they probably have.