A Grimm Warning (The Land of Stories, #3)(48)

“No, the queen and I haven’t spoken in years.” Mother Goose waved off the idea. “This friend is very old but has been a confidant of mine for a very long time.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s more of a what than a who,” Mother Goose explained. “Find the lion from the Red Lion Brewery. Tell him I sent you, and he’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

“The lion from the Red Lion Brewery?” Conner repeated to make sure he had heard her correctly. “Is he a real lion?”

“He’s a statue,” Mother Goose said. “He was the mascot of the brewery I spent most of the 1800s at—I met a lot of my closest drinking buddies there. Now I really need to go before your sister catches me in her room. We shouldn’t tell anyone else about this unless we know for certain the portal has been re-opened. I don’t want to dampen anyone’s spirits around here if there’s nothing to worry about.”

“And what if it’s open?” Conner said.

Mother Goose gulped. “Then we’re in big trouble,” she said. “Good luck, kid—oh and one more thing, do you still have that poker chip I gave you?”

“Yes, I take it everywhere with me,” Conner said.

“Good—you’ll need it,” Mother Goose said, and then she faded from the piece of mirror in his hand.

Conner’s head was spinning but he knew there was no time to waste. He quickly created a plan based on the tasks Mother Goose had given him. First, he had to sneak out of the airport and find a way into the city. Then he had to find the Red Lion Brewery and the lion and ask it where the portal was and how to check whether it was still closed. If the portal could be opened from the Otherworld side, then that meant it was open to the fairy-tale world, and the Grande Armée could be moments away from crossing over. His plan seemed straightforward. He packed the piece of mirror into Betsy and left the stall not wanting to waste another moment. However, his momentum came to a screeching halt as soon as he realized he wasn’t alone in the bathroom.

“Bree?” Conner said in horror. Bree was standing just outside the stall and, judging from the bewildered expression on her face, she had heard every word of his and Mother Goose’s conversation. “What are you doing in the men’s bathroom?”

“They started boarding early,” Bree said. “Mrs. Peters wanted me to check on you. When I got close to the bathroom I heard voices. I know you don’t have a cell phone so I came in to see who you were talking to—and now after saying that out loud I realize how many privacy laws I just broke.”

“How much of my conversation did you hear?” Conner asked.

“Enough,” Bree said blankly.

Conner had no idea what to say to her. “Well, thank you for coming to check on me but I’m not going home,” he said.

“I gathered,” Bree said.

“Please don’t tell Mrs. Peters where I’m going,” Conner pleaded with her. “There is someone in London I really need to meet. It’s really important.”

Bree’s face finally returned to normal. She quietly bobbed her head as she contemplated the situation. “I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “Because I’m going with you.”

Conner shook his head in disbelief. “What? You can’t go with me—you don’t even know what’s going on.”

Bree crossed her arms. “I’ve known something was going on since the plane ride to Germany. Your sister disappeared last year with almost no explanation, you knew the plots of fairy tales that hadn’t seen the light of day in two hundred years, and I just caught you somehow communicating with a woman called Mother Goose about an army invading another dimension.”

Conner closed his eyes—there was no coming back from it now.

“With all that in mind, my best guess is that you are somehow connected to the fairy-tale world, and now you have to make sure an army from the 1800s isn’t going to cross into that world and put your sister and grandmother in jeopardy. Did I miss anything?”

Bree said the whole thing in one breath without blinking. Conner was stunned. Reading all those mystery novels had paid off.

“Okay, I guess the dots aren’t that hard to connect,” Conner said. “But there’s no way you’re going with me. Do you know how much trouble you’d get into?”

Bree tipped her head back and grunted toward the ceiling. “I can live with trouble. I’ll tell you what I can’t live with—hearing one more conversation between the Book Huggers about a boy band or a fictitious relationship from a novel. I have three younger sisters—I went to Germany to escape all that and to have a European adventure. So far it seems you’re the only person who can supply that and you could probably use help so I’m going with you, like it or not.”

Conner’s mouth and eyes were wide open. It was the most excited he had ever seen Bree get.

“How are you taking all of this so well?” he asked. “Don’t you think the idea of another dimension seems insane?”

“Not at all,” Bree said. “I’m a writer, too, Conner, and the reason I write is because I’ve always believed there is more to life than most people are willing to believe. You’re just the first person to prove it to me.”

Conner recognized the excitement in her eyes; he had seen it every day in his sister’s eyes after their first trip into the Land of Stories. Now that Bree knew the truth, how could Conner tell her she couldn’t go with him?