The pirate chuckled at their annoyance and twirled his moustache with his hook.
“Ladies, your eagerness is sabotaging your judgment,” he said. “Remember what the witch said: As soon as the portal opens, she will lead the other witches into the new world first. Once they’ve weakened the new world’s defenses, and the new world’s defenses have weakened them, she’ll send for us. We’ll charge through the portal and claim the new world for ourselves! It’s a guaranteed victory if we stick to the plan. Patience is a virtue—”
“PATIENCE IS FOR PEASANTS!” the queen yelled. “Instant gratification is the only gratification for the powerful!”
“Allow me to finish my sentence,” the pirate said. “Patience is a virtue we’ll never need again! The final days leading up to the invasion will be the last time we wait or want for anything. As soon as we conquer the new world, we’ll have a whole planet to ourselves and billions of slaves to serve us!”
“I will rule the land!” the queen declared.
“I will rule the skies!” the hag announced.
“I shall rule the seas!” the pirate professed. “And that silly witch is in for a rude awakening if she actually believes we plan on sharing any of it with her!”
The emperors roared with devilish laughter like a pack of evil hyenas. Once the amusement wore off, the queen yawned so wide, a watermelon could have fit inside her massive mouth.
“Universal domination is exhausting,” she said. “We’d better start conserving our energy before the invasion.”
“Oh what sweet dreams await us tonight!” the pirate said with a sinister grin.
The emperors stood up from the table and left the dining hall for bed. Once the room was empty, Froggy started pacing behind the mirror, and a thousand questions raced through his mind.
Suddenly, Froggy spotted something moving out of the corner of his eye. Until this moment, he’d thought the object in the middle of the dining table was a flickering candle. After taking a closer look, he realized it was a small and shimmering pixie stuck inside a tiny jar. The emperors had been using her as a centerpiece.
“Excuse me, young lady in the jar?” Froggy asked. “Can you hear me?”
The pixie looked around the dining room in a daze. Obviously, she could hear just fine, but she couldn’t see who was speaking to her.
“I’m over here! In the mirror above the fireplace!”
The pixie looked up and stared at Froggy like he was the most unusual thing she had ever seen.
“How did you get in there?” she asked.
“I could ask you the same question,” Froggy replied.
The pixie lowered her head sadly. “I’ve been trapped in here for weeks,” she said. “At first the captain was using me as a hostage, but now he’s using me as decoration—it’s so degrading! No matter how hard I try, I can’t escape! The jar is shut too tight!”
“Then you and I are kindred spirits,” Froggy said. “What’s your name?”
“Tinker Bell,” the pixie said.
The name sounded familiar, but Froggy couldn’t remember where he had heard it before.
“Forgive me, but I’m rather confused,” he said. “Who were those awful people eating dinner? And where did they come from?”
“Well, they’re all from different places,” Tinker Bell said. “The Queen of Hearts is from a place called Wonderland, the Wicked Witch of the West is from the Land of Oz, and Captain Hook and I are from Neverland.”
It suddenly clicked where Froggy had heard the names before. With every piece of knowledge he obtained, reality became much more difficult to comprehend.
“Wait a moment,” he said in shock. “I know those names—you’re characters from the books in my library! The late Fairy Godmother gave me those stories as a gift! How on earth did you get into this world?”
“I’m still trying to figure out where I am!” Tinker Bell said. “One night I was flying through London with my friend Peter, and the next thing I knew, some guy called the Masked Man was kidnapping me!”
“The Masked Man? But how did he get into your story?”
“He was using some kind of potion to travel into a bunch of stories,” the pixie said. “He was recruiting characters into something called a literary army. The Masked Man used me to enlist Captain Hook and the pirates from the Jolly Roger. Once he had the Wicked Witch, the Queen of Hearts, and their armies of card soldiers, Winkies, and flying monkeys, they invaded this world! All the kings and queens were dethroned and sentenced to be beheaded!”
Froggy gulped, fearing the worst for his family.
“And what happened to the royal families? Did they lose their heads?”
“No, luckily they all got away!” Tinker Bell said. “The queen, the captain, and the Wicked Witch blamed the Masked Man for their escape—they were so angry, they had him dropped from the sky!”
“Do you know where the royal families went?”
“Nobody does,” Tinker Bell said. “After the Masked Man was killed, a witch approached the emperors with an offer to conquer a new world—one much bigger than this one. They’ve been so excited about it, they stopped looking for the royal families. The witch and the new world are all they can talk about!”
“Did this witch or this world have a name?”
“I think they mentioned it once or twice,” the pixie said, and struggled to recall it. “I believe the witch’s name was Morgana—no, it was Morina! And the world she was planning to invade didn’t have a name, but she called it the Otherworld.”
Froggy went pale green and felt sick to his stomach. His escape from the mirrors would have to wait—clearly, there were much bigger problems at stake.
“Oh dear,” he gasped. “The witches and the Literary Army are going to invade the twins’ world! I have to find Alex and Conner—I have to warn them!”
CHAPTER FOUR
A SUBCONSCIOUS SURPRISE
Arthur was having the most interesting dream. He started it as a small ant crawling on the ground. Blades of grass towered over him like trees, and patches of dirt stretched into the horizon like enormous canyons. It was a very unique perspective, but Arthur figured he wouldn’t get very far at an ant’s pace. So the future king of England grew long legs and began hopping across the lawn as a grasshopper.
He landed on the roots of an evergreen tree and marveled at all the branches stretching into the air. Arthur wanted to climb to the branches, but he knew it was an ambitious journey to make as a grasshopper. So he grew four claws and a furry tail and scurried up the tree as a squirrel. Once he reached the very top of the tree, Arthur stared in awe at all the fluffy clouds in the sky. He desperately wanted to fly through the clouds above, so his tiny arms grew into a pair of magnificent wings, and he soared into the sky as an eagle.