fter trying to warn Mal and her friends, Celia decided to go back down the mine shaft to see what Uma and Hades were up to. Holding on to her hat, Celia ran to the basement tunnels until she reached the one that led to the mine shaft and Hades’s cave.

She grabbed a torch and hopped onto an old rusty bicycle that was on the train tracks. She began pedaling furiously. Surely Mal would figure out some way to thwart Uma’s plans after Celia had warned her about the danger. Celia hadn’t realized just how much she wanted to go to Auradon Prep until the prospect had been put in jeopardy. She had to get off the Isle and make a name for herself somewhere it would matter. And she wanted to see the world beyond the barrier! There were so many places she had heard of but had never been.…

One day she would fly to Never Land and meet the pixies and the fairies of the hollow. Or she would tour the castles in the Auroria Priory and see how they compared to the ones in Cinderellasburg. But best of all she would travel to the bayou, to dance with an alligator who played trumpet in a jazz band. After hearing her dad’s stories all those years, she was desperate to get a glimpse of it herself.

The VK program was her one shot to get everything she’d ever dreamed of. There was no future on the Isle of the Lost. Her cards always said so.

Her cards…She felt around for them in her pockets and realized she’d dropped them somewhere in the tunnel. She got off the bicycle and began to search, sweeping her flashlight to and fro, but they were nowhere to be found. She’d have to retrace her steps.

But just then the flashlight sputtered out—she had forgotten to replace the battery! Celia shook it in annoyance. To her surprise, she realized that without the beam, she could see light peeking in through tiny little cracks in the cave walls. She’d never noticed them before, but then, the flashlight had always worked before.

“Where are my cards?” she asked herself, and, almost like magic, her cards flew to her hand.

Almost like magic? she wondered. Or magic itself?

There was something going on down here. She could feel it in the darkness, in the pinpoints of light, in the way her cards hummed in her hands.

Hades. It had to be Hades. He still had some kind of power down here, magic that was getting in through the cracks. She could feel it vibrating in the air. Not enough magic to escape from the Isle of the Lost, but enough to do some kind of harm, she was sure. Even a little magic can cause a lot of problems. That’s what her dad always said, with that evil grin of his.

Celia put a hand to the nearest crack in the wall. It was so deep that the light coming through was almost blinding. Little dust motes filled the air, and Celia felt her cards tremble in her hands. Magic. Celia could barely comprehend it, but it had to be true. How else had Uma been able to get in and out of Hades’s lair without being seen?

If there was magic on the Isle of the Lost, what kind of mischief was afoot?