Once the battery on Bree’s cell phone died, Conner and his friends had no way of tracking the time. They felt like they had been trapped in the candy cane cage for days, but whether that was due to the time alteration or their anxiety was anyone’s guess. The escapees they’d met under the Bethesda Terrace and the captives in the other cages all sat silently. They watched the horrible events around them as if they were trapped in a nightmare they couldn’t wake from.

Goldilocks hadn’t sat down once since they were put inside the cage. Her eyes never left Hero as he bounced around in the BabyBjörn attached to Rat Mary. Eventually, the infant became hungry and started to cry. Instead of giving him back to his mother, Rat Mary tried feeding him a bottle of bright green elixir—a potion Conner and his friends didn’t recognize. Hero smelled the liquid and wisely refused it.

“Attaboy,” Goldilocks whispered.

After the ovens were filled to capacity with baking gingerbread soldiers, the witches gave the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America a new task. All the cauldrons and trays were moved to the side of the Great Lawn and replaced with piles of candy. The witches gave the Scouts welding tools and ordered them to make weapons out of the sweets. The children made candy cane swords, lollipop axes, licorice whips, candy apple ball and chains, and gummy bear nunchakus. The Scouts piled their finished creations in the center of the lawn, and the arsenal grew a foot taller with every passing hour.

To say that the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts were exhausted was an understatement—it was a miracle they were still conscious. The children had been working non-stop since before Conner and his friends had even arrived at the witches’ base. Many of the Scouts started nodding off as they made the candy weapons, but they would quickly sit up before one of the witches could punish them. Although Conner’s adrenaline kept him alert, watching the tired Scouts put him in touch with his own fatigue. He leaned his head against the bars of the candy cane cage and, against his will, fell into a deep, deep sleep.

Conner dreamed he was standing in his old neighborhood in front of his old house. It wasn’t the boxy rental house the twins had moved to after their father died, but the house their family lived in while he was still alive. It was painted blue with white trim and had so many windows, the house looked like it was wearing a pleasant smile. The front yard was groomed to perfection, and there was a large oak tree the twins loved climbing when they were little.

Oblivious to the horrors in his waking life, Conner smiled at the lovely sight of his former home.

“I must be stressed about something,” he said to himself. “I only dream about this house when I’m upset.”

Conner walked up the winding path through his mother’s rose garden and entered the house through the front door. He expected to step into a cozy living room with tufted sofas, a small white piano, and all the other furniture they’d had to sell when they moved. But the front of their old house was barely recognizable because the entire room was covered in papers. Handwritten notes were taped to the walls, pinned to the sofas, and spread across the floor and all the surfaces. Not an inch of the living room was visible.

“Well, that’s odd,” Conner said. “I must have eaten something funky right before bed to be dreaming this. I wonder what it’s supposed to symbolize.”

The handwriting was the same on all the notes and looked very familiar, but it wasn’t his own. Conner pulled one off the wall to read it:

Conner knew he was experiencing much more than a dream. He ripped up the note as if it would make the request disappear, but every note in the sitting room was scribbled with the same message. Conner whirled through the house and tore every paper he could get his hands on, but the message rang out loud and clear: Alex was asking Conner to kill her.

Even in his sleep, the thought of harming his sister made Conner’s heart race and beads of sweat run down his face. Soon he felt two pairs of hands on him, shaking him awake.

“Conner, wake up!” Jack said.

“Sorry!” Conner gasped, and quickly sat up. “How long was I out?”

“An hour or two,” Bree said. “Then you started going full Exorcist on us.”

“I was having a nightmare, but it wasn’t just a nightmare,” Conner said. “Alex has been trying to communicate with me in our dreams. She covered our childhood home in letters asking me to kill her! She thinks the only way we can save the Otherworld is by taking her life!”

“That’s terrible!” Red said. “Just because someone is dangerous doesn’t mean they have to be killed to be stopped. Think about the Evil Queen—oh wait, I suppose that mirror thing was worse than death…. Well, think about the Enchantress—oh yeah, never mind…. But General Marquis—oops, he really died…. Well, the Masked Man didn’t—oh, that’s right, he did…. Sorry, I thought there were plenty of examples. You know, maybe Alex has a point—”

“We’re not killing my sister,” Conner said. “I refuse to believe there isn’t a way to break the curse she’s under! Alex’s emotions are being affected right now and she’s jumping to conclusions. We’ll find a way to help her.”

“Yes, we will,” Goldilocks said confidently. “I know exactly what’s going through Alex’s mind right now. It wasn’t long ago that I was in her shoes. She’s feeling scared, embarrassed, and guilty, and she thinks there’s no coming back from the place she’s at. But luckily for her, she’s got us to set her straight.”

“Oh, it’s Goldilocks!” Red declared with a snap of her fingers. “She’s the example I was looking for! Goldie was a lonely, miserable, and ill-tempered thief when we first met. But thanks to my friendship, she’s turned her life around and become a social, happy, and balanced woman.”

Goldilocks sighed. “What can I say? I owe it all to you, Red.”

“You’re quite welcome,” Red said. “What I did for Goldilocks is exactly what we need to do for Alex. If she insists on being killed, then we’ll just have to love her to death.”

Conner and his friends nodded politely and gazed outside the cage, hoping Red wouldn’t come up with any more nonsensical anecdotes. On the west side of the Great Lawn, they watched Charcoaline as she inspected the giant ovens. The gingerbread soldiers had been baking for hours, and Conner had been wondering how much time they needed. Charcoaline cackled with delight and rang a large bell.

“Your Excellencies! Our army is finished!” Charcoaline announced.

The Snow Queen and the Sea Witch stood up from their thrones, and eerie smiles spread across their faces.

“Release them from the ovens!” the Snow Queen commanded. “And line up the children. They must greet the army they’ve created.”

The witches rounded up the Boy and Girl Scouts and forced them to stand in groups facing the ovens. Charcoaline pulled open the door of each oven, and smoke filled the air. Like something straight from a horror movie, hundreds of gingerbread soldiers slowly crept out of the smoky ovens like zombies, moaning like the ghosts of tortured souls. They were tall, their bodies were burned, and they left behind trails of crumbs as they walked.

“You must be starving,” the Sea Witch hissed. “Come, have a snack and gain your strength before the big battle.”

The gingerbread soldiers skulked toward the groups of Scouts. The children tried to step back from the frightening cookies, but none of them could move. They looked down and discovered that Tarantulene had sprayed the grass with her web—the Scouts’ feet were stuck to the ground! Conner and his friends didn’t understand the point of this, but as they watched the gingerbread soldiers approach the children, it all made sense.

“They’re going to feed the Scouts to the gingerbread soldiers!” Conner exclaimed.

“That’s horrible!” Red said.

“Obscene!” Goldilocks said.

“We have to do something!” Bree said.

Conner and his friends jumped to their feet and shook the bars of their candy cane cage, but no matter how hard they shook them, the bars never budged. The Boy and Girl Scouts started screaming as the gingerbread soldiers crept closer. The demonic cookies opened their wide mouths and revealed their sharp candy corn teeth.

“Alex, you’ve got to help those kids!” Conner yelled at her. “The sister I know and love would never stand by as innocent children were devoured—no matter what kind of curse she was under! Come on, you’ve got to fight it! You’ve got to save them!”

For a brief moment, the expression on his sister’s face changed. Alex tightened her brow, clenched her jaw, and made fists with her hands. Conner could tell she was fighting the curse with every fiber of her being. Her glowing eyes started to fade, her floating hair started to fall, and the shield she was keeping up around Central Park began to flicker like a dying lightbulb, until it finally disappeared.

“Don’t let him distract you!” the Snow Queen screeched at her. “Keep the shield steady!”

The command reinforced the curse. The expression faded from Alex’s face, her eyes glowed brighter than before, her hair floated back above her head, and the shield reappeared around Central Park. However, the brief moments she had managed to let the force field down had been long enough for a few familiar characters to sneak through it. A split second before the gingerbread army took their first bite out of the Boy and Girl Scouts, a colorful cavalcade suddenly charged out of the trees.

Mother Goose and Merlin swooped onto the Great Lawn aboard Lester’s back, and the Fairy Council soared through the air beside them. On the ground below, Froggy and Rook rode in on Cornelius, while Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table stormed onto the lawn on foot. Conner and his friends were shocked and ecstatic to see their friends arrive.

“Am I seeing things or is that Mother Goose and the Fairy Council?” Jack asked.

“It is—and they’ve come in the nick of time!” Goldilocks cried.

“And Charlie’s with them!” Red shouted in disbelief.

“How is this possible?” Conner asked. “The Fairy Council were statues, Mother Goose was in Camelot, and Froggy was trapped in a magic mirror!”

“Who cares?” Red snapped. “After all the crap we’ve been through, just be glad we have some happy questions for a change!”

The Scouts had no idea who any of the newcomers were, but their flashy entrance was enough to distract the gingerbread soldiers from eating them. The unexpected company infuriated the witches beyond belief. They had come so far; they weren’t going to let anything stop them now. The Snow Queen, the Sea Witch, Charcoaline, Arboris, Tarantulene, Serpentina, and Rat Mary formed a line at the south end of the Great Lawn, preventing the newcomers from coming any closer. The other witches cowered at the sight of the Fairy Council and hid behind the ovens.

The Fairy Council, Mother Goose, Merlin, and Lester landed on the lawn in front of the witches. Froggy, Rook, Cornelius, Arthur, and the Knights of the Round Table joined the fairies and stood by their sides. The fairies and the witches stared at one another for a tense moment before anyone said a word.

“Release these children and surrender your army at once!” Emerelda demanded.

“Or what?” the Snow Queen asked.

“Or we’ll remove them from you,” Xanthous said.

The witches glanced at one another and roared with cocky laughter.

“Is that so?” the Sea Witch asked. “And how exactly is that going to happen? After all, fairies can only use their magic to help others.”

“Witch, please,” Mother Goose said. “We’re the ones who write the rules, and we can break them just as easily as you.”

“This is your last warning,” Skylene said. “You will surrender and go back to the kingdoms where you belong.”

“Don’t be foolish and make this worse than it needs to be,” Tangerina said.

“The witches are not going back to the old world!” the Snow Queen screeched. “We’re sick of your limitations, sick of your regulations, and sick of your laws! Your kind has forced us into the shadows for centuries—so we left the kingdoms before you could suppress us into oblivion! We’ve found our own world to rule as we please, and there isn’t room for fairies here!”

“You mistake our mercy for mistreatment,” Emerelda said. “If our goal was to exterminate you, we would have done it a long time ago. Your survival is thanks to our generosity and nothing more. We’ve never suppressed you, we’ve simply protected the innocent people you harm without remorse—and a new world isn’t going to stop us.”

“Then let’s settle this once and for all,” the Sea Witch hissed. “If the universe isn’t big enough for both the fairies and the witches, it’s high time we take our proper place on the magical food chain! Sisters, if we want a world for ourselves we must destroy the fairies!”

The witches charged toward the fairies, and an overdue battle of good versus evil began. Each member of the Fairy Council paired with a witch and spread out across the Great Lawn to duel.

Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table dashed toward the gingerbread soldiers with their swords raised. The soldiers collected weapons from the candy arsenal and fought the young king and his knights. The gingerbread soldiers were easy to disarm and slay, but they greatly outnumbered Arthur and his knights; battling the giant cookies wasn’t going to be a piece of cake.

Alex’s location was no longer a mystery to any of the newcomers. She was clearly visible on the hill at the north end of the Great Lawn. So while the fairies and witches were dueling, Froggy hopped around the lawn looking for Conner and the others. The only thing on Rook’s agenda was getting Alex to safety, so he cautiously steered Cornelius through the fighting knights and soldiers toward the hill. Mother Goose and Merlin raced to the groups of Boy and Girl Scouts. With a snap of their fingers, the spiderweb around the Scouts’ feet vanished and the children were free.

“As I said to the Children’s Crusade of 1212: Get out of here, kiddos! This isn’t your fight!” Mother Goose said.

In true Boy and Girl Scout fashion, before running to safety, the Scouts ran to the candy cane cages and freed the witches’ prisoners. Oliver used a lollipop axe to slice the lock off the cage that held Conner and his friends.

“Hey, I know you!” Oliver said. “You guys were on my flight!”

“Oliver, you’ve got to get all these other people out of here,” Conner said. “Take everyone to the southwest corner of the park. You’ll find an opening to an abandoned subway tunnel at the base of a hill. Crawl into the tunnel and follow it as far away as you can get!”

“But what about you and your friends?” Oliver asked.

“We’ll be okay,” Conner said. “Believe it or not, we’re actually used to this kind of stuff. Now hurry—before the witches see you!”

Oliver nodded and saluted Conner. Once he got their attention, Oliver led all the Scouts, their troop leaders, the escapees from the Bethesda Fountain, and all the other captives off the Great Lawn and toward the southwest corner of Central Park.

“What should we do now? Get Alex?” Bree asked.

Conner glanced up at his sister, but she hadn’t moved a muscle since the battle had started.

“She’ll be fine for the time being,” he said. “But those dudes fighting the gingerbread soldiers look like they could use our help!”

Conner and his friends dashed to the arsenal of candy weapons. Conner and Goldilocks picked up candy cane swords, Jack took a lollipop axe, Bree chose a licorice whip, and although she had no idea what they were, Red selected gummy bear nunchakus. Once they were armed, Conner and his friends joined Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and helped them battle the gingerbread soldiers.

“You must be Alex’s brother!” Arthur said as he decapitated a soldier.

“That’s me,” Conner said. “Who are you?”

“I’m King Arthur and these are my Knights of the Round Table,” Arthur said.

“From Camelot?” Conner asked. “What are you guys doing in Central Park?”

“Long story short, I’m sort of your sister’s boyfriend,” the young king disclosed.

“Boyfriend?” Conner asked as he sliced a soldier in half. “Alex never mentioned she had a boyfriend!”

“Well, we haven’t defined the relationship yet,” Arthur said.

This surprised Conner more than anything else in the park so far.

“If we survive this, you and I are going to have a chat about your intentions,” he warned.

As their friends fought the gingerbread soldiers, Jack and Goldilocks saw Rat Mary and Hero on the other side of the lawn. The couple moved through the soldiers in the direction of their son, slicing through them as if they were overgrown weeds. Bree seemed to be enjoying the fight; she giggled as she swung the licorice whip around her like a lion tamer.

“Is that your girlfriend?” Arthur asked Conner.

“Sort of,” Conner said. “We haven’t defined our relationship, either.”

Bree cracked the whip with such gusto that all the gingerbread soldiers were afraid to get near her. Even Conner kept his distance.

“Wow,” Arthur said. “If I were you, I’d have someone ask her about her intentions.”

Red tried getting as involved in the fight as her friends, but she had no idea how to use her gummy bear nunchakus. Every time she tried swinging them, she ended up whacking herself in the face. The awkward movement made her easy to spot in the crowd.

“Red, there you are!” Froggy said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“Charlie!” she exclaimed. “I’ve missed you so much!”

Red jumped into Froggy’s arms and kissed him all over his green face. A gingerbread soldier snuck up behind the couple and raised his lollipop axe above their heads. Red was outraged by the interruption.

“Excuse me? Can’t you see we’re in the middle of a reunion?” she asked.

Instead of using her gummy bear nunchakus, Red smacked the gingerbread soldier in the face with her purse. The blow knocked off the soldier’s head, and its body crumpled to the ground.

“I swear, these purchases are the gifts that keep on giving,” Red said.

Conner saw Froggy and worked his way through the gingerbread soldiers to greet him.

“Froggy! I’m so glad to see you!” he said.

“Likewise, my friend,” Froggy said. “I’ve spent days searching for you! I was trying to warn you the Literary Army was coming, but they beat me to it. Fortunately, your mother and the characters from your stories have also arrived and are dealing with the army as we speak.”

“Thanks for the update,” Conner said. “Let’s hurry up and defeat these witches so we can join them—they’re gonna need our help.”

While Conner and his friends finished off the gingerbread soldiers, the duels between the fairies and the witches were intensifying by the second.

Rosette and Arboris were going head-to-head in a heated brawl. The witch pointed at the grass, and large tree roots snapped up from the ground and knocked the fairy backward. Rosette retaliated by throwing a handful of seeds at the witch. A family of Venus flytraps immediately rose out of the dirt around Arboris’s feet and pinned the witch to the ground with their snapping mouths.

Bugs crawled out of Arboris’s skin and chewed on the flytraps until the witch was free. Arboris then hit the ground with her fist and sent a massive wave through the grass that knocked Rosette on her back. The fairy waved her hand, and a cluster of rosebushes with enormous thorns grew in a circle around the witch.

Rosette spun her finger, and the rosebushes began to twirl around Arboris like the blades of a blender. The witch screamed as the thorns scratched and sliced her. By the time the roses stopped spinning, Arboris had been decomposed into nothing but a pile of mulch.

“Even this rose has her thorns,” Rosette said, and blew on her fingertip like it was a smoking gun.

Tangerina and Tarantulene were locked eye-to-eye as they fought. The witch kicked the fairy with all four of her legs and hit her with all four of her hands. A swarm of bees flew out of Tangerina’s beehive and circled Tarantulene, stinging her arms and legs wherever they could.

The witch sprayed the bees with spiderweb and then showered the fairy with it—sticking Tangerina’s whole body to the ground. Tarantulene then stood over the fairy, preparing to strike her with her long fangs. But Tangerina managed to free one of her hands from the web, and she pointed at the witch. Honey erupted from the fairy’s finger and covered Tarantulene from head to toe. The honey quickly hardened and trapped the witch inside a large golden blob.

“It’s honey that attracts the flies, darling,” Tangerina said. “You should try it.”

Across the Great Lawn, Xanthous was caught in a battle with the Snow Queen. Unfortunately for him, nothing about their fight was heated. The witch pointed her cane at the fairy, and sharp icicles shot out of it like bullets. Xanthous dived out of their path, but there were too many to avoid. One icicle pierced his shoulder and another pierced his thigh, pinning poor Xanthous to a tree. The fairy screamed in agony and the witch cackled with satisfaction. The flames on Xanthous’s head and shoulders spread across his body until he was completely covered in fire and the icicles impaling him melted away.

The witch lifted the cloth covering her eyes, and an icy chill blew out from her empty eye sockets. Xanthous shielded himself with a wall of fire, but he struggled to keep it up. The wind grew stronger and stronger while the temperature became colder and colder. It was so cold, the Snow Queen’s face started to freeze, and soon her whole body was covered in ice.

“I always loved extinguishing little flamers like you!” the Snow Queen said.

“Do you know what they say about icy old queens?” Xanthous asked. “The colder the heart, the easier she melts.”

A ball of fire appeared in Xanthous’s hand, and he threw it at the Snow Queen. The fireball collided with the witch and exploded. The heat was so severe, it melted all the ice covering the Snow Queen’s body, and the witch vanished.

The Snow Queen’s polar bears were furious at seeing their mistress destroyed. They charged across the Great Lawn, intending to rip Xanthous limb from limb. Mother Goose and Merlin stepped into the bears’ path and blocked the beasts from attacking the fairy.

“My dear, I think it’s time to grin and bear it.” Merlin chuckled.

“Oh, Merlin, your jokes are unbearable.” Mother Goose laughed.

The couple transformed into a pair of ferocious grizzly bears and wrestled the polar bears to the ground. After a series of body slams, headlocks, and pile drivers, the polar bears gave up and tapped out of the fight.

In the opposite corner of the Great Lawn, Emerelda had a beastly challenger of her own. The Sea Witch snapped her claws, and a wall of salty water surrounded Emerelda. The witch snapped her claws again, and the wall filled with great white sharks—Emerelda was trapped! The Sea Witch opened her mouth, and an enormous electric eel slithered out from the back of her throat. The eel wrapped around Emerelda and shocked the fairy as it pinned her arms to her sides. The witch then pelted Emerelda with pieces of coral that grew over the fairy and confined her even more tightly.

“You won’t get away with this!” Emerelda shouted. “You can surround me with every fish in the sea, but good will always prevail over evil!”

“That’s the beauty of this world,” the Sea Witch hissed. “In the Otherworld, the evildoers can win!”

The Sea Witch clapped her claws together, and the wall of water caved in on the fairy. The water formed a sphere around Emerelda, and she couldn’t breathe. The fairy struggled against her fishy constraints but couldn’t break free. Emerelda’s eyes fluttered shut as she appeared to drown.

Before she celebrated her victory, the Sea Witch wanted to make certain the fairy was dead. She snapped her claws again, and the coral and eel disappeared and the fairy’s lifeless body rolled out of the watery sphere. As the witch leaned over her, Emerelda suddenly snapped back to life and grabbed the Sea Witch’s claw. The witch’s body was infected by Emerelda’s touch; inch by inch, the Sea Witch was covered in an emerald glow that transformed her body into sea glass. When the transformation was complete, Emerelda blasted the Sea Witch with a bright green light and she burst into thousands of pieces, showering Central Park with tiny shards of sea glass.

The Sea Witch’s sharks angrily lunged toward Emerelda, and the giant sphere of salt water rolled toward her. Before the sharks could harm the fairy, Mother Goose and Merlin pushed Emerelda out of the way and jumped inside the sphere. The couple transformed into a pair of giant squid and beat the sharks senseless.

Nearby, Violetta was having a difficult time keeping up with Serpentina’s swift attacks. The witch wrapped her tongue around the fairy’s ankle and dragged her through the mud. In retaliation, Violetta simply threw a small rock at the witch, but missed. Serpentina flung Violetta into the air, and the fairy landed with a heavy thud on the ground. Once again, all Violetta did to defend herself was throw another rock at the witch, and it, too, missed by almost a foot. The fairy repeated her poor defense over and over, but it only annoyed her opponent.

“Oh, come on! You’re not even trying! Have sssome ssself-ressspect and fight back!” Serpentina hissed.

Violetta smiled and pointed to the sky above Serpentina. The witch looked up and saw that all the rocks were hovering above her head—but they had all grown to the size of boulders. Violetta snapped her fingers, and the boulders collapsed on top of Serpentina.

Across the lawn, Skylene was clashing with Charcoaline. A geyser of lava erupted from Charcoaline’s mouth, and she aimed it toward the fairy. Skylene reached out her hands and blocked the lava with an equally powerful geyser of water. The water made a rainbow appear over the Great Lawn, not that anyone had a spare moment to enjoy it. Charcoaline used all her strength to hit Skylene with the most powerful geyser she could muster. The witch’s whole body filled with lava, and it flowed through the cracks of her ashy skin.

Skylene spotted the Central Park Reservoir out of the corner of her eye and had an idea. The fairy kept her watery geyser flowing with one hand and pointed to the reservoir with the other. An enormous wave of cold water spilled out of the reservoir and drenched everyone and everything across the Great Lawn. When Skylene looked up, Charcoaline had disappeared. The fairy looked at the ground and discovered that her opponent had been cooled into a mound of singed charcoal.

Not only did Skylene’s wave defeat the witch, it also dissolved all the remaining gingerbread soldiers. Conner, his friends, and the knights from Camelot cheered in victory. With the soldiers gone, Rook and Cornelius were free to approach the hill where Alex stood. The lion statues from the New York Public Library growled down at them—there was no way they were getting past Patience and Fortitude.

“Cornelius, you stay here and distract the lions,” Rook said. “I’m going to sneak up the hill behind them.”

Meanwhile, Jack and Goldilocks raced to the end of the Great Lawn where Rat Mary was dueling with Coral. The witch repeatedly scratched and bit the young fairy, but Coral was afraid that if she fought back, she’d injure the infant strapped to the witch’s chest.

“Give us back our son, you miserable rodent!” Jack said.

“If you think I’m miserable, you should meet my friends,” Rat Mary said.

The witch placed both hands on the ground and summoned all the rats and mice in Central Park. The rodents came in droves until there were thousands and thousands at Rat Mary’s command. The witch pointed at Jack, Goldilocks, and Coral, and the rodents attacked. The rats and mice crawled over their bodies, scratched their faces, and chewed on their hair. Jack and Goldilocks tried to knock the vermin off with their weapons, but there were too many to keep up with.

“Hey, Buckteeth McRabies,” Mother Goose called out. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

Rat Mary roared with laughter. “What are you going to do, Granny?”

Mother Goose cringed at the insult. “You know, I’ve been called a lot of names in my day, but you want to hear what they used to call me in Hamelin?”

“Let me guess,” Rat Mary said. “Was it Mother Time? Rip Van Wrinkles? Old Woman River? Lady MacDeath?”

“Not even close,” Mother Goose said. “They called me the Pied Piper!”

Mother Goose removed a small pipe that was tucked into her bonnet. She pressed the instrument against her lips and played a charming melody. As soon as the first three notes rang out, all the rats and mice attacking Jack, Goldilocks, and Coral froze. They immediately formed a line and scurried across the Great Lawn toward the reservoir. The rodents dived into the water and never resurfaced.

Rat Mary’s eyes widened with fear. She scanned the Great Lawn and discovered that the only witches left were the ones hiding behind the ovens—it was the witches who were outnumbered now.

“Sisters, we must leave this foul place!” Rat Mary declared. “If the fairies want the Otherworld so much, they can have it! We’ll find another world to call home, but now it’s time to fly!”

Rat Mary held out a hand, and a broomstick flew into it. The witches cowering behind the ovens quickly retrieved their own brooms.

“Lower the shield, girl!” Rat Mary shouted at Alex.

Alex did as she was told, and the force field surrounding Central Park disappeared. The witches straddled their brooms and rose into the air like a flock of crows. Rat Mary led the witches toward the New York City skyline with Hero dangling from her chest.

“HERO!” Goldilocks shouted.

Jack whistled for Lester, and the gander hurried toward him.

“Lester, we need your help!” Jack said. “Follow those witches!”

Jack and Goldilocks hopped aboard Lester’s back, and the giant bird soared into the air and followed the witches toward the city.

Now that the shield was down, everyone was finally free to leave the park, but they were also vulnerable to the dangers outside it. A sniper stationed on the rooftop of a building just east of the park had been waiting all night and all morning for this moment to come.

“General, I’ve got a clear shot on the girl from the library,” he said into his radio. “She seems to be the one generating the shield over the park. Do I have your permission to shoot before it reappears?”

“We’re a little busy with monkeys and flying ships over here,” the general replied. “Fire at your own discretion!”

“Target is locked,” the sniper said. “Preparing to fire in three… two… one!”

The sniper pulled the trigger, and in a split second, a bullet traveled more than a thousand feet from the rooftop and pierced the beating heart of an unsuspecting misunderstood teenager. Conner and his friends heard the gunshot echo through the park and looked up at the hill in terror.

“NOOOOOO!” Conner screamed.

The sound of her brother’s panicked voice broke Alex’s curse for another brief moment. She looked down at the Great Lawn and saw Conner, Bree, Froggy, Red, Cornelius, Arthur, Mother Goose, Merlin, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Fairy Council staring up with horrified expressions—but they weren’t looking at her. Alex turned to her left and saw Rook standing by her side with blood dripping from a small hole in his chest.

“Alex…” he gasped. “I hope… I hope… I hope this will make things right.”

Rook collapsed, rolled down the side of the hill, and never got up. He had gone to the hill hoping to save Alex. Tragically, his mission was even more of a success than he’d intended. Alex stared down at her friend’s body in shock.

“Rook?” she said softly. “Rook, please get up! Please get up!”

The farmer’s son didn’t move, and Alex realized that her worst nightmare had come true: Someone she loved had been hurt. A tsunami of emotion rushed through her body, and the witches’ curse returned. Her eyes glowed brighter than ever, her hair flickered above her head like the flames of a rocket, and power she had never possessed before surged through her veins.

Alex pointed at the sniper in the distance, and the building he stood on imploded underneath him. The man jumped and made it to a nearby rooftop only a moment before he would have plummeted to the ground.

“Alex, please, you need to calm down!” Conner yelled up at the hill. “You’ve got to control your emotions before they control you!”

His sister clapped her hands, and a bright spiral of light like the Milky Way Galaxy appeared above her. Alex and the lion statues disappeared inside the light, and the spiral whirled out of Central Park. With no witches to control her, the curse had transformed Alex into a destructive force without bounds—and she was loose in New York City.

“We need to find her at once!” Emerelda told the others. “If we can’t find a way to break the curse, Alex could destroy the city—and maybe herself in the process!”

Conner, Bree, Froggy, Red, Mother Goose, Merlin, and the Fairy Council ran out of Central Park and headed in the direction of Alex’s light. Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table knelt beside Rook’s body to pay their respects. Cornelius nudged his friend with his snout and waited for him to wake up, but Rook never opened his eyes again.