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“What’s a peddler’s disguise?” asked Jay.
“Obviously—it’s this. It’s what’s happened to us,” said Mal. “Evie, do you know what goes into making a peddler’s disguise? It sounds like if we can name all the ingredients, we can reverse the spell.”
“Not us,” Carlos pointed out. “Evie. It says, you know, the Fairest.” He looked at Mal, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry, Mal.”
“There’s nothing fair about me now,” Evie said. “But I have heard of the Peddler’s Disguise, though.” Her eyes were back on the glass, still riveted by her awful looks in the mirror.
“Of course you have. It’s only your mother’s most famous disguise! Remember—when she fooled Snow White into taking the apple?” said Mal impatiently.
“Don’t pressure me! You’re making me panic. It’s like, I used to know it, but now I can’t think of anything except her.” Evie pointed at her reflection. “I’m paralyzed.”
“I don’t know. I think it’s kind of cool,” Jay said. “You could steal a whole lot of stuff, looking like that.”
Carlos nodded. “He does have a point. You might want to give the whole getup a test run.”
Evie started to wail.
“Not helping,” Mal scolded.
Evie wailed all the more loudly.
“Evie, come on. That’s not you. You know that. Don’t let my mother’s evil fortress get under your skin,” Mal said, sounding as passionate on the subject as Evie had ever heard her sound about anything at all.
“This is what my—I mean, Maleficent does. She finds your weaknesses and picks them off, one by one. You think it’s an accident that we stumbled across this Magic Mirror, right when we happened to have the Fairest along for the ride?”
“You think it’s on purpose?” Evie looked calmer, and even a little intrigued.
“I think it’s a test, just like everything else in this place. Like Carlos and the gargoyles, or Jay and the Mouth.”
“Okay,” Evie said slowly, nodding at Mal. “You really think I can do it?”
“I know you can, you loser. I mean, Fairest loser.” Mal grinned.
Evie grinned back.
Okay, maybe she could do this. “I have studied that spell a hundred times in my mother’s grimoire.”
“That’s the spirit,” Mal said, thumping her on the back.
“I can see the words of the spell as clearly as if it were before me now,” Evie said a little more loudly, standing a little straighter.
“There you go. Of course you can. It’s a classic.”
“A classic,” Evie said to herself. “That was what I called it. Remember?”
Could she?
Then she looked her old, ugly self right in the eye.
“‘Mummy dust, to make me look old!’” she cried.
Suddenly, her wrinkles disappeared. Carlos whooped with joy, because his had vanished as well. And he’d hated seeing Cruella’s frown lines on his face.
Evie smiled. “‘To shroud my clothes, black of night!’”
In a flash, they were wearing their own clothes again.
“‘To age my voice, an old hag’s cackle!’” she said, and even as she said it, her real voice returned, young and melodic once again.
