“It’s time we started phase two of our plan,” the general ordered. “Get the Masked Man! Tell him to bring the dragon here at once! It’s time we finished this war.”
The thought of the dragon surfacing sent shivers down Rembert’s spine. “Yes, sir,” he said.
The twins zigzagged through the gardens, headed for the palace. Alex was crying so hard she couldn’t run anymore and fell behind a giant patch of daisies. Conner kneeled down beside her and she buried her face into his shoulder.
“I’m assuming Rook was more than a friend,” Conner said, and wiped his sister’s tears with the corner of his shirt.
“Oh, Conner, I feel so stupid,” she said. “This is all my fault! I let my heart get in the way of my head and it almost got our friends killed!”
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said. “Everything’s okay. We got to them and everyone is safe—as safe as possible, that is.”
“I feel like a piece of glass that’s been stepped on,” Alex cried. “I feel so broken inside I don’t know how to be myself anymore. Now I understand why Ezmia was the way she was—you saw what I did to those soldiers! I’m no better than she was.”
Conner pulled his sister up so he could look her directly in the eye. “Alex, stop talking like that!” he said. “You are not going to let one stupid boy who needs a haircut change who you are, do you understand me? The Alex I know would kick herself for even saying something like that! Ezmia was a whiny and narcissistic wench and you will never be her no matter what happens to you. Now you’re going to snap out of it and we’re going to help our friends win this war!”
Alex sat up and slowly nodded. “All right,” she said.
“Good. Now let’s get to the palace and help the troblins.”
He helped his sister to her feet and they continued through the gardens. Everywhere they looked they saw that the battle was persisting—but from the looks of it, the Happily Ever After Assembly was winning!
They saw seven Grande Armée soldiers surround Skylene with their swords exposed. Just as they went in for the kill, Skylene spun her hands above her head and the water from a nearby pond jetted at the soldiers like an enormous fire hose.
Soldiers chased Tangerina through the gardens and cornered her against a tall hedge wall. They raised their rifles at her and she raised her hands toward them. A thousand angry bees flew out of her sleeves and beehive and attacked the men. They fell to the ground as the bees stung them over and over again. A smirk appeared on Tangerina’s face—it was almost therapeutic for her.
Cannons were aimed at Xanthous and the Charming Army fighting alongside him. Small balls of fire grew in Xanthous’s hands and he threw them at the cannons, causing them to explode before they could be set off. The men around him cheered and one burned himself when he tried to pat Xanthous on the back.
The fairies who lived in the gardens did their part, too. Fairies of all sizes pulled the soldiers’ pants down or stole their hats as they wandered by. Some fairies even enchanted the giant plants in the gardens to grab the soldiers with their leaves and hold them tightly against their stems.
The twins saw Goldilocks and the queens go back to back as they fought off a group of Frenchmen circling them. The soldiers were cocky and laughed at the women challenging them.
“We’ll do that trick I taught you in the Northern Kingdom meadow—on three,” Goldilocks instructed the women. “One, two, three!”
The women dove to the ground and somersaulted into the soldiers, knocking them down. Two soldiers scuttled to their feet but Cinderella and Snow White tripped them using Rapunzel’s hair.
“Well done, Your Majesty!” Sir Lampton called across the gardens.
“Thank you, Sir Lampton!” Cinderella called back.
Sir Lampton was battling his own group of Grande Armée soldiers with Jack and the kings. The Charming brothers were competitively seeing which of them could knock the most soldiers to the ground and they counted each man they disarmed.
“That’s sixteen for Chandler, fourteen for Chance, and twenty for me,” Chase declared.
Jack hit the ground and kicked a soldier’s legs out from under him. “Nice try, boys,” Jack teased. “But that was my fiftieth!”
Mother Goose flew through the air on Lester’s back. She couldn’t stay cooped up at the palace any longer and had decided to join the fight.
“All right, Lester! Just like that time we narrowly escaped those kamikaze pilots during World War II!” she instructed the gander.
The giant goose stretched out his wings and spun in the air like a fighter jet. Mother Goose held a basketful of empty bottles of bubbly she had been saving and threw them at the Grande Armée soldiers as they flew over them. Cannons were aimed at her but Mother Goose snapped her fingers and the cannonballs were transformed into big soapy bubbles.
One of the cannons fired at Mother Goose went astray and blasted a hole in the side of the carriage Rook was locked in. Had he been just a few inches to the left, he would have lost his life. Instead, Rook climbed through the hole in the carriage and rolled onto the ground. He ran into the woods away from the battle zone. He had tried to warn Alex but she wouldn’t listen—the fairies were no match for what was coming their way.
Alex and Conner were a few yards from the front steps of the Fairy Palace when they saw Little Bo run past them. She was followed closely by Froggy and Red and didn’t show any sign of stopping.
“Your Highness—” Froggy called after her.
“Your Elected Highness,” Red corrected him.
“Little Bo, please stop running!” Froggy pleaded.
Alex and Conner chased after their friends. Little Bo sprinted just as determinedly as ever.
“What’s going on?” Alex asked them.
“Isn’t it obvious? Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and doesn’t know where to find them!” Red yelled back at them.
“That’s not funny, Red!” Froggy reprimanded.
“And by sheep I mean her mind! She won’t stop running!” Red said.
Little Bo frantically raced through the gardens on the search for someone or something. She scanned row after row of Grande Armée soldiers; once she realized whoever she was looking for wasn’t among them she would dart across the gardens toward another row.
“Where are you?” Little Bo said to herself as she ran.
Froggy and Red were starting to lose energy and they slowed down. Little Bo’s pace never slowed and she broke free of the group trailing her and ran farther into the gardens.
“It’s no use,” Froggy said, and stopped running. “She won’t listen to reason.”
Red and the twins caught up to him. Conner glanced back at the palace behind him and saw a cluster of Grande Armée soldiers had snuck through the gardens and were now battling the troblins on the front steps. Trollbella sat on the steps just behind Gator and cheered him on as he fought off a soldier.
“Go, Gator, go! Go, Gator, go!” she chanted and happily clapped like she was at a sporting event. “Get him with your sword! Get him with your sword!”
“Oh no,” Conner said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this!”
Conner bolted to the Troblin Army’s aid but didn’t get there fast enough. Gator was too small to fight the soldier off alone and lost his balance. The soldier stabbed him in the stomach and Gator fell to the ground.
“GATOR!” Trollbella screamed.
“Nooo!” Conner yelled. He lunged toward the soldier with his sword. The soldier was much stronger than Conner and he nearly suffered the same fate. Alex pointed her wand at the soldier dueling her brother and a bright red blast erupted from the tip and hit him in the chest. The soldier flew into the air and the other Grande Armée soldiers retreated in fear.
Trollbella placed Gator’s head in her lap while he took his last breaths.
“Don’t leave me, Gator,” Trollbella said with tears spilling from her big eyes.
“Trollbella?” Gator said, looking up at her. “Before I go, I just needed to tell you—”
“You want to marry me, I know!” Trollbella cried hysterically. “Yes, Gator! I want to get married, too!”
Gator was shocked the troll queen had interrupted his dying words. It wasn’t what he had intended to say, but the little troll died before he could say another word. Trollbella rocked him in her arms and tears rolled off her face and onto his.
“Come back, Gator!” she cried. “Please, come back!”
Alex, Froggy, and Red joined Conner and the troblins at the front steps of the palace and they all stared quietly at the sad troll queen.
“No war is without its casualties, I’m afraid,” Froggy said.
As the twins looked around the gardens they saw more and more Grande Armée soldiers retreating into the woods. Xanthous appeared beside them, followed by Tangerina and Skylene.
“The Grande Armée has fled from the south gardens,” he told the twins.
“They’ve left the east side as well,” Tangerina said.
“And they’ve retreated from the north and west, also,” Skylene said.
Xanthous looked sadly to the ground. “Many of our men were lost, but I think it’s safe to say this battle is over.”
Rosette reappeared from the Elf Empire with good news to share as well. “It was a bit of a mess when we arrived, but the soldiers and the ogres accompanying the Grande Armée fled into the Dwarf Forests,” she told the others. “The empire’s tree is severely damaged and a lot of the elves lost their homes, but Empress Elvina is safe. Violetta and Coral stayed behind to help them clean it up.”
“That’s good to hear,” Alex said. “We’re in about the same shape here.”
Soon the armies gathered alongside their kings and queens as they made their way from the gardens and regrouped with others at the front of the palace. Mother Goose and Lester landed next to the twins and Jack and Goldilocks joined them, too. Every man, woman, troll, goblin, and fairy looked exhausted—but an underlying pride was felt among them: They had fought off the Grande Armée together.
Conner walked through the crowd and headed to the center of the gardens.
“Conner, where are you going?” Alex asked.
“To end this,” he said.
He walked until he was halfway between the Happily Ever After Assembly armies at the front of the palace and the general and his men at the edge of the gardens. Only a couple dozen Grande Armée soldiers remained with the general and each looked more exhausted than the last. They leaned against the carriages and poles and one another. They were completely out of bullets and cannonballs and most of them had lost their swords.
General Marquis was the only one who seemed to have any life left in him. He stood as tall and as spiteful as ever—as if he still thought there was a chance the Grande Armée could win.
“The war is over!” Conner shouted at the general and his men. “It’s time to surrender, General, before one more life is lost.”
A menacing smile grew on General Marquis’s face. “The Grande Armée never surrenders!” he said.
Conner threw his sword on the ground to further prove his point. “The Grande Armée is gone,” he said. “You and your men were trapped in that portal for two hundred years! There is no French Empire for you to go home to! Napoleon is dead! You and your men aren’t fighting for anything anymore.”
The Grande Armée soldiers whispered to one another—was it true? Had they really lost all sense of time in the portal? The general held his stoic face and laughed at Conner.
“You stupid, pathetic, ignorant little boy,” Marquis said. “Do you insult my intelligence trying to fool me with these lies? I did not travel all this way to be defeated! This war has only begun!”
A thunderous pulsing vibrated through the ground like a massive heartbeat. Conner looked at the ground and saw his sword quivering as if something gigantic was heading their way. The tremor grew with every beat and the Fairy Palace began shaking as if the kingdom was being rattled by earthquakes.
Smoke filled the sky above the treetops in the distance. A horrible screeching noise erupted through the air. Everyone standing at the palace covered their ears from the dreadful sound.
“Oh no,” Alex said, and her face went pale.
“It can’t be,” Mother Goose faintly whispered to herself.
The Happily Ever After Assembly watched in horror as the silhouette of a gargantuan creature appeared above the trees. The rumors of the egg were true; a dragon had risen in the Land of Stories.