A Grimm Warning (The Land of Stories, #3)(119)

“Alex, where are you—” Conner said, but was distracted before he could finish.

“Look!” Goldilocks yelled.

A herd of unicorns emerged from the forest behind the dragon and circled the enormous creature, preventing the beast from reaching the palace. The herd was led by Rook, who rode Cornelius at the front of the charge. He had returned just in time.

The dragon was agitated by the unexpected obstacle. “Destroy them and get to the palace!” the Masked Man ordered.

The unicorns stabbed their horns into the dragon’s feet and he roared in pain. The dragon picked the unicorns up with his front claws and threw them into the forest in the distance. He kicked Cornelius and he was sent soaring into the gardens with Rook on his back. The dragon grew impatient and scorched the remaining unicorns with his breath. They had only slowed him down—but thankfully they had bought Alex some time.

Inside the palace, Alex raced into the chambers of the Fairy Godmother and fell to her knees at her grandmother’s bedside. Even though the fairy-tale world was in the middle of the greatest crisis it had ever faced, the Fairy Godmother slept peacefully as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

“Grandma, I need you to wake up!” Alex begged. “There’s a dragon outside and I don’t know how to stop it!”

The dragon’s roars shook the chamber and Alex buried her face into her grandmother’s mattress until the sound passed.

“Grandma, I know you think I’m ready to be the Fairy Godmother, but I’m not,” she cried. “How to defeat a dragon is only one of the many things I still need you to teach me! If there is a little magic left in you, I need you to wake up! We need you more than ever!”

Alex listened for a sound different from that of the chaos outside but didn’t hear one. She waited for a whole minute but nothing came. She wiped her tears on the mattress and looked up at her sleeping grandmother—but her grandmother was gone!

“Grandma?” Alex asked in astonishment, and looked around the chambers. “Grandma?”

She glanced at the nightstand and saw her grandmother’s wand was missing, too. The Fairy Godmother had left the room without making a sound.



Once the dragon had dealt with the unicorns, he sped toward the palace. His wings spread out on either side as he went in for the attack.

“What do we do now?” Jack asked the men and women around him.

Conner was the only one to respond. “Pray,” he said.

Mother Goose took a giant swig from her flask and walked toward the oncoming dragon. “I’m going to distract it—the rest of you run for the forests!”

“You can’t! You’ll get crushed!” Conner pleaded.

Mother Goose looked back at him. “It’s all right, C-Dog,” she said with sad eyes. “It’s my fault this even happened in the first place—it’s time I took a little responsibility.”

Before she could take another step forward, the dragon roared violently and the sound knocked everyone to their knees. As they helped one another to their feet they heard a familiar voice behind them.

“Step aside, Goose. Slaying dragons was never your cup of tea,” said a woman’s soft and sweet voice. Everyone turned to look at the top of the Fairy Palace’s front steps and couldn’t believe their eyes.

“Grandma?” Conner panted.

The Fairy Godmother had appeared, wearing nothing but her nightgown. “Forgive my appearance; I only just woke a few moments ago and didn’t have time to dress for the occasion,” she apologized.

The dragon stopped in his tracks when he saw the Fairy Godmother. She was the only thing that intimidated him in the slightest—as if it was in his DNA to fear her. He roared at her, knocking everyone back to the ground except for the Fairy Godmother.

She walked barefoot down the steps and into the gardens toward the gigantic beast with her wand ready. Alex ran out of the palace and joined Conner at the front steps. She gasped and dropped to a seated position when she saw what the others were witnessing.

The sight was unbelievable—their tiny grandmother gingerly walked toward a massive fire-breathing dragon as if she were taking a trip to the grocery store.

“Grandma! Wait! You can’t do this!” Conner yelled.

“Grandma, you’re sick! Please come back!” Alex cried after her.

Their grandmother looked at them with a twinkle in her eye. “Don’t worry, children, I still have a little magic left inside me and I couldn’t think of a better way to use it,” she said. “This is going to be fun.”

The men and women, soldiers and fairies, kings and queens, and trolls and goblins watched in disbelief as the old woman walked closer to the dragon. The giant creature screeched at the Fairy Godmother and blew a fiery geyser in her direction. She blocked it with her wand and the fire was sent in all directions except to the palace behind her.

“You’ve picked the wrong yard to make a mess in,” the Fairy Godmother said to the dragon.

“Don’t just sit there—destroy her!” the Masked Man demanded from the other side of the gardens.

The dragon blew his strongest gusts of fiery breath at the old woman, but she blocked every one of them with her wand. The twins clutched each other, terrified they were about to see their grandmother get hurt, but on the contrary, their grandmother laughed as the dragon attempted to harm her.