But at Auradon Prep, the library and its abundant resources were free and open to all. After school, Carlos could usually be found in the library, admiring the leather-bound books on every subject, from How to Keep Yourself Busy for Sixteen Years Alone by Rapunzel to Genie’s Blue Planet Travel Guides: See the World in Three Wishes. He would never get tired of the place.

But today he was holed up in the room he shared with Jay, seated on his comfortable bed with the blue plaid comforter around his shoulders as he stared at his laptop, ignoring the large-screen television and its many video games. The matching blue plaid curtains were drawn shut. As it turned out, like Mal, he preferred to work in a dark room. Carlos had been there all afternoon, so lost in his research that he’d missed tourney practice.

Carlos was a naturally curious boy, and when he wanted to understand how something worked, he didn’t stop until he’d figured it out. For instance, when Auradon City was hit with several earthquakes in a row over the past weeks, he’d looked up the statistics and noticed that there had been more quakes in the last month than there had been in the last year. He kept meaning to bring it up with his Wonders of the Earth teacher but hadn’t gotten the chance yet.

This time he wasn’t merely curious, though. He was furious. Earlier that day, he had received a rather upsetting e-mail. Unlike most kids at Auradon Prep, Carlos wasn’t very active on royal media—his GraceBook account only had one old post, he never sent ZapChats. He preferred the ease of his genie-mail account, which organized his e-mails like magic.

That morning, he logged in to see if the new video game he’d ordered (Crown of Duty) was on its way and discovered a new e-mail from an unknown sender. The message, like most anonymous messages, was mean-spirited, telling him to go back where he came from and return to the Isle of the Lost by moonset. While the e-mail itself had been annoying, it really irritated him no end that he hadn’t cracked the e-mail sender’s true identity yet.

Carlos figured he was smarter than the average troll, but the only progress he’d made was to unmask the server that had routed the e-mail, and so far he hadn’t been able to hack through its security defenses.

“Dalmatians,” Carlos muttered, frustrated enough to use his mother’s favorite curse. “Sorry, Dude,” he said, apologizing to the dog on his lap. Dude whimpered and Carlos scratched him behind his ears.

The rapid-fire sound of knocking on the door startled him. “Come in!” he yelled, and looked up to see Mal and Evie entering with dark looks on their faces.

He held up a hand as they crowded around his desk. He’d been expecting them for a while now. “Don’t tell me. You’ve both received rude messages saying to return to the Isle of the Lost, haven’t you? Which is why you’re here? I got an e-mail today.”

“How did you know…never mind,” said Evie. Carlos was often a step ahead of them.

“Yes, we did,” said Mal, pulling up a chair, giving Carlos the details. “What’ve you found? Do you know where they’re from?”

“Not yet,” he said, his fingers flying over the keys. But he was getting close, he could feel it. He’d finally breached the first security firewall; now all he had to do was figure out the password. He tried to ignore the girls so he could concentrate.

“Isn’t it weird that you got an e-mail, Evie got a comment on her InstaRoyal account, and I got a text?” Mal pointed out. “Whoever’s behind it seems to know us pretty well.”

Carlos nodded. “I’m barely on royal media, you only use your phone, and everyone knows Evie’s always updating her feed. Do you think they reached Jay? He’s never online and he’s always losing his phone.”

“I’m sure they found a way,” said Mal.

“We think the messages might be from our parents,” said Evie a little breathlessly.

That was not news he wanted to hear. “What! Why?” Carlos twisted around, suddenly seized with the fear that his mother, Cruella de Vil, with her wild hair and trademark screech, was right behind him.

Dude whimpered.

“Relax, they’re not here, at least not yet,” said Mal. Then she told him how Evie’s Magic Mirror had been unable to show them the villains on the island.

“Well, call me paranoid, but lately I feel like she is near. Like she’s watching me somehow. I can’t shake the feeling,” he said, panicking as he imagined Cruella appearing at his doorway. While Maleficent might be able to turn into a dragon, Cruella was a dragon.

“Nah, you’re just paranoid,” said Mal.

Carlos chewed on this new information. “Maybe so, but you’re saying there’s really a chance they’re behind these messages? Our parents? They want us to come back? But why?” he asked.

“Because they miss us and want to give us hugs?” said Evie. “I’m kidding, I’m sure my mom only wants to know if I’m keeping up with my weekly mud masks and facial massages.”

“They want us to return so we can help them get their revenge on Auradon, of course,” said Mal. “Defeat only makes villains try harder. I can just hear my mom now, saying ‘You poor simple fools, thinking you could defeat me! Me! The mistress of all evil!’” Then she cackled like Maleficent.

“You’re scarily good at that,” said Evie, shivering.

“Thank you, I think?” said Mal.

Carlos shuddered and turned back to his computer to try out a succession of common passwords. None of them worked. He stared at the blinking cursor. “Dalmatians,” he cursed again. Then he realized if Mal was correct and the villains were behind the messages, there was only one way to find out for sure.

C-A-V-E-O-F-W-O-N-D-E-R-S, he tried. Nothing.

M-A-K-E-U-P was his next guess. He sighed with relief when it didn’t work, and E-V-I-L-L-I-V-E-S turned up nothing either.

Gathering his courage, he decided to try one more password that would link the messages to their parents.

D-A-L-M-A-T-I-A-N-S, he typed.

The screen froze and for a moment Carlos was relieved that his hunch was incorrect, but after a second it came to life again, and green letters began scrolling across the screen. He’d hacked it. He was inside.

“Oh no,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” asked Evie, squinting at the screen. It was a Web site unlike any they’d seen before. It was more primitive and crudely designed, with no pretty icons or bright colors, only windows of black screens with green letters.