UnTwisted Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Disney Book Group

  Designed by Jamie Alloy

  Cover illustration by Maike Plenzke

  Cover design by Jamie Alloy

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

  ISBN 978-1-368-01297-3

  Visit www.DisneyBooks.com

  To Maddie, always,

  and to the 2018 Broadway revival cast

  of Angels in America

  (if you know Maddie, you know why)

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Kingdom of Kaloon Magical Unification Act

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Flissa

  Chapter 2: Sara

  Chapter 3: Flissa

  Chapter 4: Sara

  Chapter 5: Flissa

  Chapter 6: Sara

  Chpater 7: Flissa

  Chapter 8: Sara

  Chapter 9: Flissa

  Chapter 10: Sara

  Chapter 11: Flissa

  Chapter 12: Sara

  Chapter 13: Flissa

  Chapter 14: Sara

  Chapter 15: Flissa

  Chapter 16: Sara

  Chapter 17: Flissa

  Chapter 18: Sara

  Chapter 19: Flissa

  Chapter 20: Sara

  Chapter 21: Flissa

  Chapter 22: Sara

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  In acknowledgment of the new Era of Equanimity between those with magical powers (Mages) and those in the general populace, the following rules shall now and forever forward be enforced in the kingdom of Kaloon:

  1. All Kaloonians shall be treated equally, be they Mages or members of the general populace.

  2. Magical Animals shall be full Kaloonian citizens, afforded the same rights as humans.

  3. No discrimination shall be tolerated on the basis of a citizen’s magical abilities. This applies to the general populace discriminating against those with magic, as well as Mages discriminating against the general populace.

  4. No Mage shall use their powers to control or harm another human or Magical Animal, with the exception of clear acts of self-defense.

  5. No Mage shall use their powers to gain an advantage against a member of the general populace in a game of chance or sporting event, unless such an event is specifically engineered to include said magic.

  6. In an effort to educate Kaloonians on our shared history and integrated future, all human children between the ages of twelve and eighteen, be they Mages or of the general populace, shall attend Maldevon Academy, as shall Magical Animals of the equivalent developmental level.

  This act is law, and supersedes all previous acts, most notably the Magic Eradication Act, which is rendered strictly and irrevocably defunct.

  Should anyone defy the rules laid out in this act, they are in violation of the law, and shall face sentencing by the General Council of Kaloon.

  So it is written and sealed from this day forward.

  “Do you, Flissa and Sara, swear your eternal loyalty to the kingdom of Kaloon? Do you pledge yourself, heart and soul, to make its best interests your primary concern from this day forward?”

  “We do,” the princesses said in unison.

  The twins glanced at each other as they spoke, each seeing the enormity of the moment in her sister’s eyes. It was their Ascension Day, the day they officially took their place in line for the throne of Kaloon, but this wasn’t how either of them expected it to go. The ceremony was supposed to occur in the cobblestone courtyard in front of the palace, before the entire kingdom. It was supposed to be a day of triumph, where they stood together and proclaimed their twinhood without fear of repercussion from the Keepers of the Light.

  Instead they stood together in dim, flickering sconce-light in the caverns beneath the castle, surrounded only by those palace residents deemed too young, too old, or too frail to fight in the revolution. Katya, Rouen, Primka…none of them were here. Even their parents had only come to the caverns to recite the vows for the ceremony and would return to battle the second it ended.

  “Do you, Flissa and Sara, swear to the best of your ability to seek justice for your people and render it rightly, impartially, and wisely, in compassion and in truth?”

  The king and queen spoke the words in hushed tones as they stood behind Flissa and Sara on the small, cobbled-together dais. The princesses couldn’t see their parents in the semidarkness, but they knew each one held a sparkling gem-encrusted tiara, one for each sister.

  “We do.”

  Like their parents, Flissa and Sara kept their voices low. It felt wrong to speak out when they were technically in hiding, and in a place that had once been used by Dark Mages for terrible purposes. When the sisters first saw this enormous room with its impossibly high, rocky ceilings, the dirt floor was dotted with craggy spikes still stained with ancient blood, and the room ended in a wide chasm of Forever Flames. Now Mages had swept through—good Mages, who had been with the Underground. They’d removed the spikes and contained the Forever Flames under an impregnable magical barrier, then filled the pit with layers of earth and stones, and covered it all with a blanket of the softest sand.

  Even with those precautions the cavern would have been off-limits. Then the fighting started, and it became a gathering room and play area for those who took refuge under the castle to live in curtained-off rooms among the twisting halls and catacombs. The residents were children mainly, along with the elderly, the ill, and those who didn’t believe in battle no matter what. Flissa and Sara respected the conscientious objectors, but they didn’t feel the same way. They wished they could fight for Kaloon, but their parents said they were too young, plus they had to stay safe to protect the royal line. Determined to do their part, they spent their days helping others in their dank, dimly lit refuge: comforting children, nursing the sick, and spending time with the old people eager for someone to sit and listen.

  “Do you, Flissa and Sara, swear to be honorable rulers, communicating openly and consistently with both your subjects and the lawfully elected General Council of Kaloon, to make sure the laws of the land are just? And should any Kaloonian law be recognized as unjust, do you swear to work together with the Council to change said law, so all Kaloonians can live in righteous harmony?”

  “We do,” Flissa and Sara said, glancing at one another again. This was a new part of the vow, one that King Edwin had only added after the twins had returned from their journey to the Twists and shared everything they’d discovered about the Keepers of the Light and their tyranny. On that very day, the king and queen secretly sat down with Katya, Rouen, and their other most trusted advisers to write the Magical Unification Act.

  Writing the act was simple. Enforcing it would be harder. The king and queen had tried to work with the magical Underground to ambush Grosselor, the leader of the Keepers, and take him down, but Grosselor had found out about the attack. He’d gathered his loyal followers and retreated to the magical prison of the Twists, where he rallied the darkest, most malevolent Mages.

  Now the two sides were locked in combat, and the Dark Mages were winning. Those who visited the caverns said the battle was pushing closer and closer to the palace. If the Dark Mages reached it—if they overtake the castle and invaded the caverns—Flissa and Sara knew they would do their best to fight back. They also knew their newly discovered magical skills wouldn’t st
and a chance. The whole royal family would be wiped out, and the Keepers of the Light would win. The kingdom’s only hope was that the Shadows—highly powerful good Mages who had been magically hibernating in the Twists—would rise up and join the fight.

  At the moment, there was no sign of that happening. Quite the opposite: Flissa and Sara had both heard whispers in the catacombs that the Shadows had been a myth all along.

  “Then by the power vested in us by the royal ancestry of Kaloon,” the king and queen continued, “we hereby assert and proclaim your place in the Royal Line of Ascension. May the universe smile upon Princess Flissa and Princess Sara, and may the universe smile upon Kaloon.”

  The gathered crowd echoed it: “May the universe smile upon Princess Flissa and Princess Sara, and may the universe smile upon Kaloon.”

  Princess Flissa and Princess Sara.

  The words were electrifying, and as King Edwin and Queen Latonya lowered the matching tiaras onto the girls’ heads, the motley crowd burst into applause. Both sisters beamed, then reached out and squeezed each other’s hands. The kingdom was locked in a magical battle of good versus evil, and these could very well be their family’s last days, but after twelve years—their entire lifetime—of living a lie, their subjects had embraced them as two separate people.

  Flissa and Sara smiled down at the faces looking up at them in the flickering sconce-light. There was Rodrick, the white-haired, stooped-over gardener who had been tending the palace gardens since King Edwin was a child. He wiped away tears as he applauded Flissa and Sara, and the twins remembered the story about his young wife, whom the Keepers had exiled to the Twists on their wedding day when she made the mistake of raising her left hand to swear the oath of marriage. Left-handedness was considered a sign of magic; Rodrick never saw her again. There were also the somber, towheaded five-year-olds with large, moonlike eyes. These identical boys were the sons of Abrel, one of the king’s bravest guards. Flissa and Sara had been around Abrel all their lives and felt close to him, but they’d never even known he had children. He and his wife had said their child died at birth. They’d kept the boys hidden so the Keepers wouldn’t exile them for their twinhood.

  Since they’d been in the catacombs, Flissa and Sara had heard endless stories like these from people who had seemed perfectly happy on the outside but who actually lived in mortal terror of the Keepers of the Light. Every one of them was grateful to the princesses and eager for the chance to take their kingdom back.

  As Flissa and Sara rode the continued applause, their eyes locked on those of two more familiar figures in the crowd: a tall boy with dark, stringy hair that fell in his face and a stone-faced girl whose white-blond hair was shaved into intricate patterns, except for a ponytail high on her head.

  Galric and Loriah.

  The two stood together at the back of the group, separated a bit from the others. Galric’s haunted eyes still held the pain of deep loss, and Loriah, whom Flissa and Sara insisted be smuggled out of the Twists before the fighting began, was still on constant alert, her eyes always shifting to catch a sneak attack. Both of them felt more comfortable outside the catacombs, running messages and supplies for the fighters, but neither would have missed the Ascension Ceremony for the world. For the first time since he lost his father, Galric’s smile lit his whole face, while Loriah clenched her jaw and clapped with a grim ferocity, as if daring anyone else to be happier for the princesses than her.

  King Edwin and Queen Latonya moved next to the girls, taking their hands so the four of them made a chain. They raised their joined hands, the crowd cheered, and for just a moment—despite the raging battle, the underground catacombs, and the constant fear of what might come next—for just a moment it felt like anything was possible.

  Six Months Later

  Forty-one…forty-two…forty-three paces. Flissa touched the far wall of the room she and Sara shared. Now, how many if I walk on my hands? She tilted into a handstand and started to move. One…two…

  “How do I look?”

  Flissa vaguely heard her sister’s voice from the other end of the room, but she paid it no attention. She needed all her concentration to find decent handholds amidst the piles of Sara’s clothes on the floor. Besides, if she reeeeally focused on each little task she gave herself, she could forget what they had to do today. Five…six…

  “Flissa!”

  So much for focus. Flissa flipped back to her feet, expertly avoiding the pointy tip of Sara’s favorite calligraphy pen, which was inexplicably embedded in a pile of tights.

  “How do I look?” Sara asked again. She struck a dramatic pose, one arm cocked behind her head, the other outstretched. “It’s perfect, right? Wait. Don’t answer until you check out the twirl.”

  Sara spun, and the pleated flare skirt of her flaxen-yellow silk dress gave a dazzling swirl, while the lightly ruffled neckline on its close-cut bodice flounced slightly. When she stopped spinning, she reeled like an off-duty royal guard who’d had too much mead. “Bad idea,” she said woozily. “Too spinny.”

  She staggered three steps to Flissa’s bed and collapsed facedown on the duvet. Then she turned her head and grinned. “But pretty, right? Perfect for a first-day-of-school grand entrance?”

  She said “grand entrance” with the vowels dragged out and fancy. Like they were going someplace fabulous and special and not brutally intimidating at all.

  “It’s pretty,” Flissa said.

  Sara narrowed her eyes. “You don’t sound sure. Are you sure?” She flopped onto her back. “Aaaargh! I wish Loriah still lived in the palace. She’d tell me exactly what she thought of this dress.”

  “I can tell you what Loriah would say.” Flissa folded her arms and arranged her face in an exact replica of Loriah’s low-lidded unimpressed stare. “It doesn’t matter what you wear. At all.”

  Sara snorted appreciatively. “You’re right; that’s what she’d say. But she’d be wrong. It does matter. And you know it matters because it took you days to figure out your outfit.”

  Weeks, actually. And countless coin flips. Flissa had started fretting about it long before Sara had asked her.

  “The dress is beautiful on you,” Flissa assured her sister. “In fact, it’s so beautiful that it makes me think maybe I should wear a dress too.”

  She meant to say it lightly, but Sara clearly saw through her.

  “No,” she said. Then she rolled clumsily off the bed, a thumping tumble of yellow fabric. She took Flissa’s hand and led her to the full-length mirror at the end of the room. “That’s why you chose your outfit first, remember? You look wonderful. You look like you.”

  Flissa studied their side-by-side reflections, and her heart sank.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like her outfit. She did. She wore her favorite black velvet jodhpurs, and a cream-colored tunic with sleeves that puffed over her arms but cinched tight at her wrists. Combined with her soft-soled shoes, it was the kind of outfit she loved best—perfect for breaking into a run…or turning upside down and walking on her hands to take her mind off the day ahead.

  What she didn’t like was looking at herself next to Sara.

  They had always looked exactly alike; it’s how they were able to pass themselves off as one person—Princess Flissara—for so many years. They were the exact same height and had grown the exact same inch over the last six months. Their skin was the exact same shade of brown, and their eyes the exact same violet. Even when they stopped pretending to share an identity, even when they dressed differently and changed their hairstyles, Flissa took comfort in the fact that they still could look exactly alike. And at the end of each day, when they changed into their still-matching nightclothes and took down their hair, they always had.

  But now Sara had cut her hair and pierced her ears. She’d gotten their mother to do it last night, right before bed, without even consulting Flissa about it first.

  That wasn’t just a change, it was a statement.

  Now Sara’s earlobes gliste
ned with tiny silver-and-crystal studs, and her hair was short in the back and longer on the top, where it curled into springy ringlets. The effect was stunning. She looked beautiful, sophisticated, a little bit older…and absolutely nothing like her twin sister.

  Flissa ran her hands down the long, thick braid that lay over her right shoulder. “Maybe I should just redo my hair. Put it up, maybe.”

  “So it looks shorter?” Sara asked knowingly.

  Flissa bit her lip and looked down at her feet, but Sara took her hands and ducked to meet her eyes.

  “Flissa, you don’t have to worry about anything. You should be excited. We’re going to school. You know what’s at school? Books, and studying, and more books. And Athletics—an actual class where we have to run around and get sweaty. It’s everything you love rolled up into one. I’m the one who should be dreading it. For you it’s a dream come true!”

  “You do make it sound fun,” Flissa admitted. “But it’s not the classes I’m worried about. It’s…”

  Flissa didn’t want to say it out loud. She knew how desperately Sara wanted to go out in the world and meet new people, and she had every right to do it. But what sounded so exciting to Sara seemed like torture to Flissa. Flissa had spent her whole life making formal chitchat with dignitaries and visitors at royal balls, but she’d never let anyone get close; Sara was the only real friend she’d ever needed. Now she had Loriah and Galric too, and that was wonderful, but that was enough. She had no desire to go to school and see their perfect foursome overrun by the teeming throngs Sara would bring in to join them.

  “Your first day of school!” Primka, the small bird who had once been their tutor, flew in from one of her crevices near the ceiling, crying out as she swooped in happy circles. “I never thought I’d see the day! Never! Not that I think you need school for your education, of course. I’m sure I’ve already taught you far more in twelve and a half years than you could ever learn in—”

  Primka looked down at the girls and reeled back, one wing dramatically over her chest.