“Are you sure?” said Evie.

“I’m sure,” said Mal.

“Fine,” said Jay. “If she doesn’t want us here, we don’t need to be here. And this place gives me the creeps.”

“But the professor said…” Carlos began.

“He’s not here now, is he? He’s not the one who had to climb this mountain and look for this egg. Get out of here!” Mal shouted.

Carlos, Evie, and Jay exchanged looks with each other. Mal glared at them until, one by one, they climbed out of the nest and began to make their way down the mountain.

Mal didn’t need anyone, she never had. Okay, maybe the four of them had stood together when Maleficent was defeated, but come on, in the end, everyone knew that it was Mal’s will that had broken her mother’s and reduced the dragon to the size of a lizard.

Although Mal’s heart felt small right then, thinking of her friends descending the mountain without her, she couldn’t let it stop her. She covered every inch of the nest, and on the third time through the muck, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Something small and purple.

“Aha!” she said, reaching for it. But Mal had been expecting a green egg, like in the Dragon’s Eye scepter. Why was this one purple?

Only when it hatches does it turn green, a voice answered, as if it could read her thoughts. The Dragon’s Egg does not birth a dragon, but a weapon.

Okay, whatever, thought Mal, stuffing the egg in her jacket. At least that was done. She’d recovered her talisman just fine without anyone’s help. Maybe the professor was wrong about her quest; after all, the old guy didn’t know everything, right?

She stood at the edge of the nest, ready to head down, when a vulture shrieked from above. She startled, losing her balance, and fell over the edge, just barely holding on to a branch at the very bottom of the nest. Her legs kicked wildly in the air.

Great, she was about to fall off a cliff, and she’d gotten rid of the only people who could have helped her. Why did she always insist on doing everything alone?

Her hands were starting to burn.

She was an idiot, that’s why, and she couldn’t hold on much longer!

You’ve held on this long, haven’t you?

She had the blood of a dragon, just like her mother.

Don’t you?

Her fingers felt like they were starting to fall off.

She was Mal, daughter of Maleficent. Her mom had given her only part of her name, saying she hadn’t earned the rest of it yet. But maybe she didn’t want her full name at all. Maybe she didn’t want to be Maleficent. Maybe she was completely fine with just being herself, being Mal.

Aren’t you? Isn’t that the whole point?

Who else are you supposed to be?

One hand slipped off the branch, and dirt began falling into her eyes as the roots tore off from the cliff.

Maleficent would never admit to needing or wanting anyone, and had been transformed into a lizard because she didn’t have enough love in her heart. But Mal was not her mother. While she was stubborn, and way too proud, she was very different from Maleficent. And right now she wasn’t ashamed to admit when she was wrong.

Now she was only holding on by one hand. The branch was ripping out of the cliff face. She could be falling in moments.

You’re wrong. You’ve never been more wrong—

Evie, Jay, and Carlos needed to discover their own strength and so they had to face their quests for their talismans alone. Mal didn’t have to be tested that way, because she already knew that she was strong. But what she didn’t know until now, dangling over the edge, was that as strong as she was, she could always use a hand.

Literally.

Maybe that was my test after all—

Strength didn’t have to mean facing danger alone. Strength came from trust, and friendship, and loyalty. Plus, Yen Sid was right, this wasn’t just her burden to bear, it was theirs too. She hoped her friends were still there.

“You guys! Help!” she yelled. “I need help!”

She kept screaming until she saw their faces peering down at her from the nest above. “Mal! We’re coming!” said Evie.

Carlos held Evie’s feet as she was lowered down, with Jay as the anchor. Ever so slowly, and ever so carefully, they dragged Mal back to safety.

Mal could barely catch her breath, and her throat still hurt from screaming. Her hands were cut and scratched.

But she was alive.

“Thanks, guys. For saving my life and everything.”

“Did you find the egg?” said Carlos, when they were all back inside the nest again.

Mal held up the purple oval that was hard as stone. “Yep.”

“Why is it purple?”

“It still has to hatch,” said Mal. “But let’s get out of here before this mountain completely collapses or something.”

As if it heard her, the mountain began to rumble and shake, slowly disappearing back into nothingness now that its purpose had been served and its talisman taken.

No new doorway appeared in the side of the mountain after Mal had retrieved the Dragon’s Egg. She was still a bit dazed from the near-death experience as they climbed back down the mountain.

“How do we get out of here?” asked Evie nervously.

“I think we have to go through that,” said Carlos, motioning to a cavern at the base of the mountain after consulting the map. “There’s no way back, so we’ll have to keep going forward.”

“Great, another dark tunnel,” said Evie, who had just about had her fill of the underground catacombs.

“But I think this one leads us back home, to Auradon,” said Carlos hopefully. “If the map is right…”

“Let’s go,” said Mal, who’d found her voice. She held the small purple egg in her fist, unwilling to put it away in her pack just yet.

“Flashlight’s dead, so we’ll have to feel our way in the dark,” said Jay, tossing the torch into a bubbling green puddle with a sigh.

“Then we’ll do this the only way we can,” said Mal. “Together.” The four of them held hands and entered the foreboding cavern.

They’d traveled for a while when the path before them began to shine, and when they rounded the corner, they saw abandoned wheelbarrows and uncut rocks with diamonds still embedded in their core.

“Looks like a dwarf mine,” said Evie. She’d seen them in Doug’s ZapChats.