THE MARGINS. THAT IS WHAT THE EVIL QUEEN and Maddie said the fog parts are called. Now that Frankie knows what it is, she scans the fog as she goes, studying it, eager to understand it. The space between “stories.” Between lands. The Margins is a place where new stories, new universes, might one day come to exist. Fascinating! She peeks over the edge of the bridge they’re walking on. The lava is higher than it was an hour ago. Scary! Fascinating… but also scary! So many emotions that the ends of her hair frizzle and her fingernails buzz.

Ahead, through the mist, Frankie spots another fork in the bridge. She hooks the wire powering the compass back to her bolts and turns the contraption on. Now, instead of Maddie’s teacup, the chisel is fitted in the compass’s spinning mechanism. The gears grind as the device spins. She didn’t build it to hold something as heavy as the chisel, and she worries the compass will break. But so far it’s holding, and the glowy green arrow points them to the right fork of the bridge. The way to Shadow High.

There go her goosebumps again.

After directing the group to the right, she powers down the compass and watches the chisel’s spin slow to a stop.

“I don’t understand,” she says. “How can a little chisel be big enough to anchor down an entire island, let alone keep all the lands of the world apart?”

“How can a little key be big enough to open a large door?” asks the Evil Queen, walking beside Frankie, always one step ahead. “Or an acorn big enough to grow an oak tree? Why, you don’t even think twice when overnight a magic bean becomes a beanstalk that carries you to the land of giants in the clouds.”

“I would think twice,” Frankie mumbles.

“Wait… that beanstalk thing doesn’t really happen, does it?” asks Draculaura.

“No way. It makes no scientific sense,” says Frankie. “Besides, how would a big, heavy giant walk on clouds without falling through?”

Maddie laughs. “Hah! I love you guys! Next you’ll be asking how puppets can talk!”

The Evil Queen ignores them. “Small things do great things all the time. Just look at me.” The Evil Queen bats her eyelashes and puts her hands coyly beneath her chin. “Would you ever believe that sweet little me would one day rule the entire world?”

“Nope,” Maddie says cheerfully.

The Evil Queen glares daggers at her.

Maddie frowns. “Oops, was that one of those ‘there’s only one right answer’ quizzes? I prefer oral reports.”

Frankie shoots a glance at Draculaura to see if she’s remembering their failed class presentation, and how it was all Frankie’s fault. But Draculaura is ambling along beside Raven and chatting like they’re old friends. Frankie sighs.

“You walk in front now,” the Evil Queen tells Frankie, falling back into step with Raven. “I’m tired of hearing that disgusting wheezing noise next to me. It makes my skin crawl.”

Frankie shivers again but scolds herself for it. In the Margins, the Evil Queen’s magic is gone. Technically, she is just a grumpy lady in an extravagant outfit. And perfect makeup. Also she is pretty tall. But she is still scary. Fascinating!… But scary.

“You mean breathing, Mother?” Raven says. “You don’t like hearing Frankie breathe?”

“Oh, don’t be tedious,” the queen says. “I don’t like hearing any of you breathe.”

“Maybe she needs earplugs,” Maddie mutters to Raven. Then, yelling at the queen, “Maybe you need earplugs!”

“I don’t understand you, Mother,” says Raven. “If you don’t like us, why did you save our lives from the wave of lava?”

The Evil Queen sighs. “That was my ‘hexplaining obvious things is hexhausting’ sigh, if you didn’t pick up on that. I didn’t save all your lives, daughter. I was just trying to save—never mind.”

“How many different kinds of sighs do you think she has?” whispers Maddie. “I’m guessing twenty-three.”

“I’m fine walking in front by myself,” Frankie offers with forced cheeriness.

“Breathing is a sign of life!” says Raven. “Living things breathe, breathing things live! The sound of breathing should bring you joy, if you have any heart at all!”

“You bring up an interesting point, my little grump-toad.” The Evil Queen gestures to Frankie and Draculaura. “Why are they breathing at all?”

“Um,” Frankie mutters, “I’m alive. Experts agree. I’ve heard it said. ‘She’s… she’s alive!’ Like that.”

The Evil Queen gestures to Draculaura. “This, over here, is a vampire,” she says, sounding like she’s lecturing a small child. “And this, over here, is a zombie.”

Frankie whirls to look behind her, worried one of the Zomboyz is tagging along.

“She means you,” Apple whispers, stepping up beside her.

“But I’m not a zombie,” Frankie says.

Apple shrugs. “The Evil Queen says weird stuff sometimes. She called me an Ambling McIntosh once.”

“What does that even mean?”

“No idea,” Apple says. “She’s called me lots of names. There was also Fruitspawn,” Apple continues, counting on her fingers, “Little Miss Undertow, Moldy Sock Puppet, Snowflake, and Fate’s Toadie.”

Frankie laughs, then covers her mouth. “Sorry. I’m not laughing at you. It’s just… those names are nuts.”

“They are,” Apple agrees. “I want to laugh each time, but I’m always too scared of being roasted alive or turned into a frog or something.”

“I don’t get it. If she’s trying to insult you, wouldn’t she want to say something that makes sense?”

“I don’t know,” Apple says. “But the way people say something means something.”

“You’re right,” Frankie says. “It almost doesn’t matter what the words are; if they say it like they, I don’t know, think they’re better than you? Or it makes you feel like you’re worth less than they are? And that they’re disgusted you even exist? It’s not hate, exactly, but—”

“Contempt,” Apple says. “Insults hurt, but so does saying things that should be nice but in a way that sounds scornful. Like ‘your hair looks… fableous?’”

The way Apple pauses before fableous and implies a question at the end makes Frankie brush her fingers through her own black-and-white hair just to make sure it’s okay.

“Or calling someone princess,” Frankie says. She had been using that word from the first time she met Apple, and not in a particularly nice way. At first Frankie thought it was a kind of joke, because who really claims to be a princess? She felt out of place, and Draculaura was getting along so well with Raven, and here was Apple, this perfect girl who was also a princess and clearly thought monsters were terrible. So Frankie crammed all her “you think you’re so special; you’re not better than me; you’re just a faker” feelings into the way she said that word. Princess. Now electricity surges through Frankie, turning her mint-green cheeks a pale pink.

“Or monster,” Apple says. “The way I’ve been saying that word to you is… wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” they both say at the same time.

Apple pulls Frankie into a hug that almost pops a seam at her shoulder.

“Do you smell that?” Frankie asks.

Apple releases her. “It wasn’t me.”

“No, not that,” Frankie says, looking around. “And not smell, exactly…”

“Just stop it, already!” Raven is yelling, still arguing with her mother.

“I’m just saying you shouldn’t hang out with them too long,” the Evil Queen says. “They’re bound to eat you, steal your shoes, drink your blood, whatever. It’s in their nature.”

“That’s a common misconception, actually—” Draculaura begins.

“They are nice!” Raven shouts. “And they are my friends!”

Frankie’s eyes widen as she realizes what she smells. Or senses. There is lightning nearby, and a lot of it. Until now, there’s been no weather of any kind in the Margins, but her ears are good at picking up the crackle of electricity. It’s almost like electricity whispers to her: Hey, Frankie, just hanging out inside the wires in the walls, no worries, or Having a keen time circling inside this battery—wheee! or Right above you, girl! I’m tired of this cloud, and I’m coming down!

She was hearing it now, except instead of polite conversation, the lightning was shouting like two armies on either side of the bridge. AARRGGHHH!

“Look out!” shouts Frankie. She shoves Raven and the Evil Queen away just as imaginary lightning crackles out of imaginary clouds, zapping Frankie in a way that doesn’t feel imaginary at all. Her bolts buzz; her hair lifts. She smiles and can feel her teeth shudder. Refreshing, actually.

“Whoa,” says Raven. “Thanks, Frankie.”

“Okay, Sparky and Sparky Junior,” Maddie says, cartwheeling between Raven and her mother. “Let’s separate you two.”

“Great idea, Maddie,” Apple says, eyeing the clouds. “How about Frankie, Raven, and I take the front, and you, Draculaura, and, er, Her Highness guard the rear.”

The two Queens scowl at each other over Maddie’s head.

“Cool!” Draculaura chirps. “I’ll tell you all about vampires! My dad is thousands of years old, you know?”

The Evil Queen drops her glare. “Is that possible?”

“Totes!” Draculaura says.

“Hexplain, vampire girl.”

“Whew.” Apple exhales as she, Frankie, and Raven pull ahead.

The clouds stop sparking and fade into dark wisps of fog.

“That was the Margins, I guess,” Frankie says. “Forming your anger into a storm.”

“Sorry,” Raven says. “She just makes me so mad. And I felt like I could cut loose because, you know, here there’s no risk of it turning into a magical fight.”

“Hexcept for the imaginary doom clouds,” says Apple.

“As if we needed more natural disaster,” says Frankie. “What with the entire world breaking into pieces and all.”

She picks a screw out of her pocket and tosses it over the bridge. When they first left Ever After High, the lava was so far down she couldn’t hear a splash. After they left the Lost Library, screws had taken four seconds to hit the lava. Now it took two.

“It’s rising,” Apple says.

“That’s right,” Frankie confirms.

Apple takes out the Mapalogue she confiscated from the Evil Queen and has been carrying in her backpack.

“We better get to this Shadow High place fast,” says Apple. “We’re running out of time.”

“Let’s walk faster,” says Raven, picking up the pace.

Frankie starts laughing.

“What?” asks Apple, smiling even though she doesn’t yet know what’s funny.

“We’re in the Margins, ghouls!” says Frankie. “Why are we walking?”

She shuts her eyes and imagines so hard her lightning-recharged body fizzles all over. In the fog ahead, a train whistle sounds.

Along the bridge now lies a track, and a mint-green-and-silver engine waits, smoke billowing out of its steam stack. It makes an impatient whoo-whoo noise.

The group climbs into the single train car, and with some focused imagining from Frankie, the engine starts to pull them down the track. Chk-chk-chk-chk, faster and faster, the track lying before them as they steam ahead.

“Wahoo!” Raven yells, her head out the window.