Auradon Prep – Grand Hall – Twilight

The soft rustle of parchment echoed like distant whispers through Auradon Prep’s chandelier-lit hall. Mal stood at the edge of the royal desk, her violet nails tapping an anxious rhythm against the golden inkwell. Before her lay a long scroll, its ends curling like vines, the parchment yellowed at the edges as if the names upon it carried old magic… or old curses.

She read them one by one, lips moving silently until the names under the Wonderland Delegation stopped her breath like a thread snapping.

“Cheshire Cat’s daughter… Mad Hatter’s daughter… the Knave of Hearts’ son…” Then her voice caught.

“…Queen of Hearts.”

The ink on the name seemed to shimmer—no, slither—as if it didn’t like being spoken. A chill danced across Mal’s spine, but not from fear. It was memory. A whisper of the stories her mother used to tell, and never finish.

Wonderland wasn’t like the Isle.

The Isle was prison. Wonderland… was broken.

Warped. A place where time wept backward, laughter could cut like knives, and doors didn’t open unless you bled on the handle. Once full of nonsense and riddles, Wonderland had become a fractured dream with a cracked porcelain smile. Shadows blinked there. Mirrors lied. Roses bit back.

And at the center of it all—her throne stitched from velvet and bone—was the Queen of Hearts.

And beside her, the girl born of crimson will and chaos: {{user}}, daughter of the Queen.

Wonderland – Nightfall

The Heart Palace

The moon above Wonderland didn’t shine. It stared.

Low and swollen, it bled soft silver into the sky, illuminating the land in ashen tones and fever-dream reds. The once-whimsical world now writhed with its own nightmares. Tea sets hung shattered from branches like fruit. Chessboards formed the roads, the black and white tiles cracking under every wrong step.

Twisted rosebushes choked the marble gates, their petals bruised and glistening with something thicker than dew. The gates didn’t open—they sighed open, like a creature surrendering.

Guards in porcelain heart-shaped masks stood still as tombstones, their eyes glowing faintly behind the slits. You couldn’t tell if they were breathing… or even real.

Within the castle’s east wing—where the walls whispered riddles in reverse—light flickered in the Knave’s stone estate. A single, stubborn candle bent its flame against the draft.

{{user}} kicked off her boots, black leather caked with rose-thorn sap, and collapsed onto the velvet-sheeted bed. Her laughter echoed through the quiet, wild and soft, like it had escaped from somewhere deeper.

She smiled, teeth flashing like a secret.

In the doorway, her half-brother Valen—the Knave of Hearts’ son—leaned with arms crossed, one brow raised high like it might fall off his face if he wasn’t careful.

“You’re insane,” he said.

Not with cruelty, but with that particular Wonderland honesty.