A Grimm Warning (The Land of Stories, #3)(118)

The Masked Man turned his head sharply to the general. “No,” he said.

The general rotated his whole body to face him. No one had ever defied him so bluntly before.

“What did you say?” General Marquis asked him.

“I said no, Jacques,” the Masked Man said.

He walked toward the general but the dragon stayed right where he was. There was something very different about the Masked Man; he didn’t seem as frail or as odd as he usually did. Having possession of the dragon made him stand taller and much more confidently—he didn’t have to please anyone anymore.

“I’ve taken a lot of orders from you recently and I’ve had enough of it,” he barked at the general.

“You work for me!” General Marquis shouted.

The Masked Man burst into laughter. “Now comes the part when I tell you the truth, General,” he said. “From the minute I saw you and your men storm into the prison, you started working for me. I’ve waited a long time for someone like you to come my way—someone as power hungry as me but who was blinded by his determination and could be easily manipulated. This whole time you only thought I was working for you when actually you were giving me exactly what I wanted. Thank you for your services, General Marquis, but you are no longer valuable to my cause.”

The Masked Man was the only person who had ever deceived him. For the first time, the general of the Grande Armée looked afraid.

“Don’t just stand there! Seize this man!” the general demanded—but the soldiers stayed still. In this moment the man with the dragon was the one they didn’t want to cross.

“Wise choice,” the Masked Man said to the soldiers. “Good-bye, General.”

He opened his hands and the soldiers discovered he had kept the shells of the dragon egg. He clutched them very tightly. He raised his hands toward General Marquis and the dragon jerked his head in his direction. The dragon took two steps closer to him and the general tried running away.

“Nooooo!” General Marquis screamed.

The dragon took a deep breath and exhaled a long and powerful fiery geyser from his lungs. The geyser hit the general and he was consumed in its vicious flames. When the dragon stopped, the ground beneath the general had been scorched black and General Marquis was gone.

“What just happened?” Conner shrieked.

“The Masked Man—he has the dragon’s eggshell!” Mother Goose exclaimed. “When a dragon is born and develops its sight, it assumes that whoever it first sees with its eggshell is its mother—meaning whoever holds the pieces of the eggshell becomes the dragon’s master! The Masked Man is in control of the dragon!”

“Oh great,” Conner said. “More good news!”

The Masked Man raised the eggshell pieces toward the Fairy Palace. “Kill them,” he instructed the dragon, and the creature took a step forward. Suddenly, Little Bo Peep emerged from the gardens and put herself in between the dragon and the palace.

“Wait!” Little Bo screamed. “You don’t have to do this!”

The Masked Man dropped his hands and the dragon stopped.

After searching the Grande Armée soldiers for hours, Little Bo had finally found the Masked Man. She slowly walked toward him with tears running down her face.

“I know your life has been difficult and unfair and you’ve been tossed aside by your own blood, but I also know there is a loving and caring man under that mask somewhere,” she said. “That’s the man I fell in love with! This is your chance to show the rest of the world that you’re not the conniving and revenge-seeking lunatic they think you are—for my sake, show them the man I love so there is still hope we can be together! Don’t ruin the world just because it has ruined you!”

The others watched her with bated breath. They felt their hearts pounding out of their chests. Had her words meant something to him? Did the Masked Man love her enough to call off the monster? If the Masked Man’s face hadn’t been covered, they would have seen a very conflicted expression surface as he thought about what Little Bo had said.

But he raised the eggshells toward the palace again. “Kill them ALL!” the Masked Man shouted.

Little Bo’s pale skin went even whiter. Tears stopped rolling down her cheeks and she stopped breathing altogether. She stared at the Masked Man in a daze and clutched the left side of her chest. Despite her heartfelt appeal, the man she loved more than anything else in world didn’t care if she lived or died. With no one else to live for, Little Bo collapsed on the ground and became very still.

Sir Lampton and Xanthous ran to her and carried her back to the others. They laid her down on the steps and Alex and Conner leaned beside her. Conner checked her pulse.

“She’s dead,” he gasped. The women covered their mouths and the men removed their hats at the news. Even Red was upset to hear it and buried her face in Froggy’s shoulder.

Alex pulled Little Bo’s necklace out from the top of her dress. She inspected the tiny heart-shaped stone at the end of the chain and saw that a crack had formed across it. Little Bo Peep had died of a broken heart.

The dragon slowly crept toward the Fairy Palace. He scorched the gardens beside him with his fiery breath as he went.

Alex couldn’t stand waiting around like a sitting duck for another second. Her grandmother was the only living person who knew how to defeat a dragon—and as long as she was still alive there was a chance she could give them the answer. Alex ran up the front steps and into the Fairy Palace, praying her grandmother could give them a solution before all was lost.