The Sorceress

1.16

"Yo, ho, ho!" The deafening sound of my dearest cousin woke me up from my sleep.

"Jay! Keep it down." Carlos whispered-shouted and Jay went quiet immediately after. 

"Ooh, damn. My bad. Is she waking up?"

"I don't think so."

"I am awake now. Thanks to you guys." I slowly rose up and leaned back on my bed before rubbing my eyes.

"Finally, you're awake. Are you feeling better?" Mal sighed in relief when I nodded and continued to flip over her book.

I looked around the room and saw Evie doing Chad's homework again, Jay in his tourney jersey and walking around the room, and Carlos typing something on a laptop while scratching a dog beside him. 

"Wait, Carlos?" I received a humm from the said boy, "Is that a dog beside you?"

"Yeah! Ben gave Dude to me." He answered excitedly and carried the dog up and introduced it to me, "Vae, this is Dude, the campus mutt and my new buddy. Dude, this Nevaeh, the best person in the entire world."

The dog barked excitedly at me and I carefully rubbed its head. I smiled proudly at Carlos, "You did great, buddy. How do you feel?"

"Fantastic!" He beamed while rubbing Dude's belly affectionately, "I've never felt so happy before."

"That's good news." I chuckled before turning to Jay, who was leaning against the wall, "And I should say congrats to my cousin for making it into the tourney team, shouldn't I?"

Jay's eyes lit up and he tried to hide his uplifting lips, "How did you know?"

Evie rolled her eyes, looking up from her paper and to Jay, "You're literally wearing the jersey, Jay, you know?"

"Shut up, E," Jay muttered, his cheeks turning red from embarrassment. Then he made his way to Mal's bed and leaned against the bed's column, "So, what's the plan?"

Mal groaned frustratedly and glared at Jay, "Do you think I would be flipping over this damn book and going through every single spell if I had a plan?"

"Someone's in a bad mood," Carlos muttered under his breath.

In return, Carlos got a slap on the head from Mal, "My Mom's counting on me. I can't let her down."

"We can do this," Jay suddenly declared. Quite dramatically, I might add, "if we stick together." And it appeared that Auradon's rubbing off him. 

"And we won't go back until we do." She paused, "Because we're rotten."

"To the core." We chorused together.

Evie was twirling with the pencil in her hand before she remembered something, "Oh, yeah. And I found out that Fairy Godmother blesses Ben on the coronation that we all get to go. I've got nothing to wear, of course." Evie rolled her eyes in irritation 

I turned to Mal and she was looking at me too. Then the both of us stared at the girl with a deadpanned gaze and Evie looked at us innocently, "What?"

A knock on the door was heard. Mal looked Evie dead in the eyes and closed her spellbook, "Hold that thought." She got up from her bed and went to open the door.

The door was opened and revealed a nervous-looking Ben. Ben's eyes lit up and a smile graced his face instantly when he saw Mal at the door, "Hey, Mal. I didn't see you guys after recess. Is there anything wrong?"

"Oh, nothing. We were just worried about Vae. She wasn't ... feeling well." Mal answered smoothly.

"I see. Well, is there anything I could do to help? Or if you guys needed anything?" Ben offered, his eyes fixated on Mal's. I exchanged a glance with Evie and we both had a knowing smile on our faces.