“I think they heard us,” Jay whispered back. “Everyone, be quiet!” He strained to hear and squinted in the pitch-black gloom. A few moments later, he picked up the sound of Harry’s heavier footsteps. “All right, come on,” he whispered, motioning to his friends to follow him.

“Where are they going?” Mal asked Evie. “This is your castle, right? What’s down here?”

“No idea,” said Evie. “Until today I didn’t even know we had a basement.”

The darkness abated somewhat and they saw Harry and Jace disappear into a room on the left side of the hallway. Jay nodded and the four of them entered right after. Like the rest of the dungeon, the room was completely dark, but Jay thought he could sense people around them. What was going on? He couldn’t help but feel that their sneaky entrance hadn’t been so successful after all.

“Back up, back up, I have a bad feeling about this,” he said, trying to lead them the opposite way.

Too late!

The door immediately shut with a bang behind them.

“Dalmatians,” cursed Carlos. “It’s a trap!” It was just as they feared, the stuff of their nightmares.

From the darkness came a menacing voice. “Operation Welcome Home is a go.”

Carlos startled at the sound of the voice and quickly hid behind Mal. He figured it was the safest spot. He wasn’t afraid to face danger, but he preferred to do it knowing Mal was in front of him. Evie gasped but managed not to scream. Jay cracked his knuckles, preparing to throw fists. Mal was calm, and her voice was even and steady when she poked Carlos and told him what to do. “Torch, please.”

“Pardon?” he asked, before realizing she meant the torchfire zapp on his phone. He turned it on, shining a blazing light into the darkness.

The four of them were illuminated by the sudden brilliance, and Carlos saw that they were surrounded on all sides by a small but excitable group of young villains. He recognized some of the faces—his cousin Diego de Vil, who raised an eyebrow in greeting; Harry and Jace with eager grins on their faces; Yzla, Hadie, Claudine Frollo, Mad Maddy, who was holding some kind of flaming weapon in her hands.

Hold on. What was that noise? What were they doing?

He couldn’t be sure at first, but it looked as if the crowd was clapping, cheering even, hooting and stomping feet and calling out their names. “They’re here! They’re here!” “It’s really Mal!” “Jay’s here too!” “Yay, Carlos!” “Evie looks fantastic!”

And hang on…that weapon that Maddy was holding…was that a cake? With way too many candles?

It was definitely a cake, and one that said WELCOME BACK, HEROES!

“I think they mean us?” said Jay, breaking into a grin.

“Definitely us,” said Evie, sounding incredibly relieved.

“Hmm, I think we had the wrong idea about this club somehow,” said Mal, nudging Carlos. “Or maybe we’re at the wrong meeting? They sure don’t seem very anti-hero to me.”

But Carlos didn’t notice the ribbing, he was too stunned to see a very familiar and very welcome face in the group.

“Professor!” he called, when he spotted none other than his former Magic of Science teacher, Yen Sid. He was standing right behind Maddy, the stars on his peaked sorcerer’s hat reflecting the candle flames. Yen Sid was one of Dragon Hall’s most respected teachers, even if it was rumored he wasn’t any kind of villain at all, but had voluntarily relocated to the Isle of the Lost in order to help educate the villains’ children.

“My boy,” said Yen Sid with a grave nod. “Welcome.” He turned to the gathered group. “Give them space, give them space, don’t crowd them around so much,” he said gruffly. “And I suggest you four deal with those candles before they set fire to the whole building. We wouldn’t want Evil Queen returning home to a pile of ashes, now, would we.”

The four of them blew out the cake to another round of cheers. Someone turned on the lights, and Carlos realized they were in a perfectly normal-looking basement room, clean and bright. There was a chalkboard on one wall and rows of neatly arranged tables.

“Shall we begin with the cake? I had to bribe some hard-bargaining mice to sneak it out of the Auradon kitchens to the goblins earlier this week just for this,” said Yen Sid. “Yzla, bring over the plates, please. Maddy, will you do the honors?”

“Of course, Professor,” said the young witch, and set about cutting slices.

The four of them watched in stunned silence as the group obediently and graciously moved aside and sat patiently, waiting for their slices. Carlos caught Jay’s eye and shrugged.

Yen Sid motioned for them to take the nearest table. “At least they’re not here to attack us,” said Jay, who accepted his slice with a wink.

“Unless they want to kill us with sugar,” said Mal, looking forlornly at her piece. “I sure wish I hadn’t eaten that whole stale pudding now.”

The Anti-Heroes club members, who’d never had anything remotely this good, were gobbling up the cake as fast as Maddy could slice it. It was their first taste of real sugar, and a few of them were dizzy and ecstatic from the sweetness.

Harry and Jace walked up with triumphant smiles on their faces. “Told ye we wouldn’t spoil it, and we didn’t, did we?” said Jace. “Ye had no idea, right?” asked Harry eagerly as he licked some frosting from his upper lip.

“No idea,” said Carlos, suddenly feeling much fonder of them than before. They were slow and bumbling, but often eager to please. When he had been forced to throw that party for Mal, they had helped him decorate without complaint. Jace and Harry grinned and shuffled back to their seats, satisfied.

“Professor, can we ask what this meeting is about?” said Evie as she picked daintily at her slice of cake.

“In time, in time,” replied the professor, licking frosting off his mustache. “We have much to discuss, and it is better to do so on a full stomach.” He set his plate down on their table. “So tell me, how were you able to return to the island?”

“I drove,” said Carlos, his mouth full of cake.

“We stole the royal limousine,” said Jay. “It has the clicker that unlocks the dome and makes the bridge appear.”