By midnight, over a thousand US Marines had joined General Wilson on Fifth Avenue. The soldiers surrounded the New York Public Library on all four sides, but it was impossible to get close. Whenever a Marine came within ten feet of the building, he or she was quickly knocked back by one of the lion statues. Even if a soldier was on the opposite side of the structure, a lion would crawl over the building and swat the soldier away before he or she could enter.

The general watched the statues from behind a wall of sandbags in the middle of Fifth Avenue. He took a long drag from his twelfth cigar of the night and decided it was time to take action.

“All right, enough cat games!” he said to his soldiers. “I want both those lions blown to bits! Open fire on the count of three… One… Two… Three!”

The Marines unleashed tremendous firepower on the national landmarks. Bullets came from soldiers on all sides of the library and from snipers stationed on the rooftops nearby. The statues were shot until they crumbled into pieces and the front steps of the library were covered in their stony debris.

“Hold your fire!” the general ordered, and the shooting ceased. “Inspect the damage!”

A soldier ran up the front steps of the library and examined the debris.

“All clear, sir,” he called out.

“Good,” the general said. “Now send in the platoon to find the girl. If she resists arrest or retaliates with an assault, you are to terminate her immediately. That is an order, do you copy?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” the soldiers responded.

As the platoon charged up the library’s front steps, they came to a sudden halt. As if the destruction of the statues were being rewound before their eyes, the debris magically reassembled piece by piece until both lion statues were fully formed again—and the felines weren’t happy. The lions roared with such gusto that many of the soldiers’ helmets flew off. With one powerful blow, the platoon was knocked down the library’s steps and the soldiers rolled into the street.

“Holy reincarnation!” the general said, and the cigar fell from his mouth.

In over six decades serving in the United States Armed Forces, General Wilson had never encountered anything like this. The stone felines were putting up the greatest defense he had ever witnessed.

Suddenly, all three double doors at the library’s entrance were blasted open from inside. Alex and the witches emerged and stood on the front steps with the lions. The witches looked around Fifth Avenue in wonder. The Otherworld was so much bigger and brighter than they’d thought. They’d expected a world similar to their own, but instead were standing in a metropolis of lights and concrete beyond their wildest dreams.

The soldiers looked at one another with the same dumbfounded expression: Where did they all come from? General Wilson picked up a megaphone to speak to the mysterious women.

“This is United States Marine Corps General Gunther Wilson,” he said. “Whoever you are and wherever you came from, you are interfering in a matter of national security. Put your hands up and come quietly or you’ll be taken by force.”

The witches shared a cackle—unaware of who the soldiers were or what they were capable of.

“You heard the man, sisters,” the Snow Queen screeched. “It’s time to put our hands up.”

The witch raised her hands into the air, and hundreds of enormous icicles shot up from the ground. They were so sharp that they flattened the tires of all the Hummers on the street and nearly impaled many of the soldiers.

“Attack!” the Snow Queen screeched. “The Otherworld is ours!”

The witches squealed in celebration and their invasion began.

The Sea Witch rode her rogue wave around the library and threw pieces of coral at the nearby soldiers. The coral latched on to their uniforms and grew rapidly around their bodies, binding their arms and legs.

Rat Mary placed open palms on the ground, closed her eyes, and whispered a spell to summon all the rats in the area. To her surprise, thousands of rodents crawled out of the sewers and drains, the trash cans and subways, and joined her on the front steps of the library. She directed them toward the soldiers, and the rats pounced on them like a plague of locusts.

Arboris pointed to the trees beside the library’s steps. All the leaves flew from the branches into the air and rained down on the soldiers. The leaves poked and stung the soldiers like swarms of killer bees.

Smoke steamed out of Charcoaline’s ears, and the cracks of her ashy skin filled with magma. A fiery geyser erupted from her mouth like a volcano, and she aimed the blast at the general. He and his soldiers dived out of the way, and their wall of sandbags exploded.

The Marines had never been trained for such attacks. They were so shocked by the witches’ magic, they were practically paralyzed and didn’t know how to retaliate.

“Sir? What do we do?” a soldier asked the general.

“Shoot them!” the general ordered. “Shoot them all!”

The witches didn’t recognize the weapons the Marines were aiming in their direction. By the time they realized the objects were firearms, the soldiers had already started firing. A split second before the witches would have been shot and slaughtered on the steps of the library, Alex raised a hand, and the bullets bounced off a magical force field.

When the general realized the soldiers were wasting their bullets, he motioned for them to hold their fire. The Marines lowered their weapons and stared at Alex’s magic in amazement. The Sea Witch picked a steaming bullet off the ground with her claw and examined it with her large black eyes.

“The Otherworld is not the same place it was when we discovered it,” she said with a nasty scowl.

The Sea Witch held the bullet to the Snow Queen’s nose. The blind witch smelled it and her brow tightened.

“They’ve evolved,” she screeched. “Where is Morina? Why didn’t she warn us about their development?”

The witches looked around the front steps and the entrance hall of the library, but Morina was nowhere to be found.

“She’s tricked us!” Rat Mary yelled.

“Morina’s sent us to our death!” Charcoaline moaned.

“How could ssshe betray usss like thisss?” Serpentina hissed.

“Silence, you fools!” the Snow Queen ordered. “We will not perish because of Morina or any human of the Otherworld! We aren’t prepared for this battle—but mark my words, by sundown we will be ready for the war! All we need is a place to retreat until we gain our strength!”

The Sea Witch looked up Fifth Avenue and pointed to the southeast corner of Central Park in the distance.

“Look, up there!” she said. “It’s a forest! I say we take cover in the woods until we are ready!”

“Yes, perfect!” the Snow Queen screeched, and turned to Alex. “Lead the way!”

At the witch’s command, Alex clapped her hands and all the remaining soldiers went flying out of their way. She snapped her fingers and all the Hummers, the police vehicles, the lampposts, the street signs, the trash cans, and everything else in their path disintegrated into piles of ash. In one swift procession, the witches, the lion statues, and Alex marched up Fifth Avenue toward Central Park.

Once they arrived, Alex waved her hand through the air and a massive force field surrounded the entire park like a shimmering, rippling dome. The Marines tried to follow the witches into the park, but Alex’s shield electrocuted anyone who got near it: No one was going in or out.

Alex, the lion statues, and all the witches continued their march into the heart of Central Park and disappeared from the Marines’ sight. The soldiers had thought they’d seen just about everything with the moving statues, but clearly, the spectacles had only begun.

“Your orders, sir?” a soldier asked the general.

General Wilson didn’t respond. He was just as stunned by the night’s events as the rest of the Marines. He was going to need help with the situation, and there was only one person he could get it from.

“Sir? Your orders?”

“I’m thinking, Sergeant, I’m thinking!” the general snapped, and paced as he thought. “The whole island of Manhattan needs to be evacuated at once! Call the Pentagon and tell them we need backup! We need as many boots on the ground as possible!”

“Yes, sir!” the soldier responded.

“Oh, and Sergeant?” the general said. “One more thing—and this is the most important order of the night: Find Cornelia Grimm—immediately!”