Once Upon the End (Half Upon a Time) (21 page)

CHAPTER 44

D
idn’t you die or something?” Jill said, grinning despite herself.

Jack shrugged. “What am I, some kind of hero?” With that, he walked right past her, and Jill, a bit startled, ran to catch up.

“Where are you going?! What are you even
doing
here?”

“It’s been a little longer than you think since I’ve seen you last.”

“Longer than a week?”

Jack smiled. “A bit. I’ve got a plan on how to take out the Wicked Queen, but if it doesn’t work—”

“
When
it doesn’t work,” Jill corrected.

Jack paused and looked at her for a moment. “I wish I could say I missed that.”

“I wish I could say you’re making more sense than usual.”

“I’ve got the Queen’s heart,” Jack told her, pulling out the wooden heart box and opening it. Jill gasped, then stabbed it with her sword.

“Really?” Jack said when the heart kept on beating. “You really think I wouldn’t have tried that?”

“Who knows with you?”

“ANYWAY, I’ve got a plan. Snow White found out how to stop the heart, which is why the Queen poisoned her. So I’m going to go see what she has to say.”

Jill froze again, and Jack grabbed her arm and yanked her to keep her moving. “But,” she said, “Snow White’s—”

“Not so much awake,” Jack said with a nod. “I know. I did say I had a plan, didn’t I?”

“The Charmed One,” Jill said, the pieces falling into place in her mind. “So you think you can somehow get both you and him into Snow White’s head and wake her up somehow? That’s a pretty stupid plan, Jack.”

“Why break tradition with a smart one? Speaking of bad plans, how’s our father doing?”

“Oh, he’s off fighting some war outside. I’m sure he’s fine. He’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

“Let’s hope it stays there,” Jack told her. “I thought I heard dragons coming in. And the Charmed One thinks that the Queen’s using the harp I got—”

“Yeah, I’m already caught up on things,” Jill said with a sigh. “So, Snow White’s in the throne room. You know who else will probably be there?”

“Just offhand, I’d guess the Queen. Probably the Wolf King.”

“Maybe a few guards, too.”

“Maybe.”

They reached the door to the throne room, and Jack glanced through the crack.

“How many do you mean when you say a few?” he asked.

“Three?” Jill said.

“There’s more than a few,” he told her, stopping his count at around fifty.

“And the Queen?”

“I don’t see her. Maybe she’s busy.”

“There
was
an execution going on,” Jill said, and Jack looked back at her questioningly. She realized what she’d said and quickly shut her mouth, but Jack just stared at her.

“Who?” he whispered as loudly as he dared.

“Okay, you’re going to probably not take this well—”

“WHO?!”

“It’s probably too late anyway, and honestly, it was supposed to be a big public thing, and—”

Jack growled and began walking away, out toward the courtyard.

“Where are you going?” Jill demanded.

“That might be the stupidest question I’ve ever heard you ask,” he said without turning around.

She grabbed his arm, but he yanked it away from her. “You
can’t
go out there,” she hissed at him. “You’ve got a chance to kill the Wicked Queen once and for all, and you’re going to waste it by rescuing a princess?!”

“Yup,” Jack said.

Jill grabbed his cloak and slammed him against the wall. “THINK about this, Jack! Either she’s already gone, in which case there’s nothing you can do, or the best chance you have of saving her is getting Snow White back. That’s all you can do now—”

“You don’t even
care
about her!” Jack shouted far too loudly.

“NO!” Jill shouted. “I don’t! I care that the Queen killed my mother! That’s
all
I care about! That’s all I’ve cared about since I can remember!”

Jack started to yell back, then sighed. “She was my mother too.”

Jill nodded. “I know. She liked me best, though.”

He glared at her, and she glared right back.

“Help me with the goblins,” he told her, “then I’ll take care of Snow White, and
you
go rescue May. That’s the only way I’m doing this. Deal?”

She gritted her teeth, and he repeated himself. “DEAL?!”

“FINE! As soon as the goblins are out, I’ll go find your little princess. Happy?!”

“Not for almost a year now,” Jack told her, and the two of them ran back to the throne room.

Inside, over one hundred goblins watched as the throne room door slowly opened, only to reveal an empty hallway.

“Hello?” one said, then flew backward into the guards behind him.

“Who’s there!” another shouted, and this one fell forward, bashing his head into the floor.

“It’s one of the traitor Eyes!” one of them yelled. “Strike out with your weapons, you’re bound to hit them!”

And with that, the goblins began attacking anything and everything.

Thirty seconds later, the number of conscious goblins had been cut in half, and within a minute, there were only two standing.

Jack knocked their heads together and almost laughed. “Okay, maybe I didn’t need any help,” he said to Jill, who reappeared next to him.

“I’ve wanted to try that for so long,” she said, a huge grin on her face. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. And a little knowledge might have been all they had.”

“Go,” Jack told her, looking past the throne at the coffin of ice propped up next to it, the silhouette of a woman just barely visible through the frost.

“If you mess this up without me, I’m coming back for
you
,” Jill told him.

“Fair enough.”

Jill shook her head, then ran off back down the hall. As soon as she was out of his sight, though, she reversed course.

The harp came first.

The sky filled with fire and dragons. May plummeted between beanstalks, claws, and teeth to slam into a blue dragon spewing fire on the merfolk below, then yanked up to fly her green dragon into the underside of a giant red dragon above her. Her dragon attacked with all four feet, and the red dragon screamed, then crashed into a beanstalk, sending both dragon and beanstalk toppling to the ground.

Flames exploded just to her left, and May threw a look back to find two smaller green dragons chasing her down, both ridden by Eyes. She dodged right, then left, fire swirling around her on all sides, then yanked up on her reins to send her dragon almost vertical. She gritted her teeth and held on as tightly as she could with her knees as the dragon flipped upside down, then straightened back to horizontal, having looped behind both of the other dragons. May yanked on the reins again, and her dragon spat fire to the side of the green dragon on the right, crashing it into its partner, and both toppled to the ground.

The Eyes might be faster than she was, but
they
hadn’t seen a lifetime of movies with plane stunts, either.

But the dragons weren’t the only threat. She heard a shout and glanced down to see Phillip and Penelope surrounded by goblins on all sides, while Bluebeard fought crazily to try to reach them from one side, and the Sea King and his mermen did the same from the other.

Without a thought, she dropped her dragon toward the ground, a blast of fire exploding behind her through the spot she’d just been.

Phillip looked at Penelope, who smiled at him sadly. “At least you’re going out next to your true love,” she told him.

He could not help but smile. “You seem so sure of that.”

She shrugged as the goblins advanced. “It’s okay. I’ve warmed up to you, too.” She held out her hand, and Phillip took it and squeezed.

A horrible roar filled the air, and something enormous and green slammed to the ground just in front of them, fire exploding from its mouth.

The goblins shrieked and ran in all directions, and Phillip looked up to see a blond girl in a black hood smiling down at him.

“Your Highness,” May said, and saluted him.

There were a thousand things he wanted to say at that moment. Apologize. Explain. Beg her forgiveness.

A thousand things, but all could wait.

“The Queen,” Phillip told her, pointing at the castle. “She is the key. If we have any hope of winning this, she must be our priority.”

May looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Agreed.”

She started to spur her dragon back into the air, but Phillip raised a hand. “May, I—”

She shook her head and stopped him. “Later, Phillip. Stay alive, and you can grovel then. Deal?”

He smiled. “Deal.”

And with that, May’s dragon leapt into the air, and Penelope grabbed Phillip’s hand to pull him back into the battle.

Jack slowly pulled the lid off Snow White’s coffin, not sure what to expect. Part of him thought the Wicked Queen might be waiting for him within. Or some sort of monster. Or just anyone but Snow White.

But no. There she was, as beautiful as everyone said . . . hair black as night, eyes closed, her hands crossed over her chest. She looked older than the paintings of her, but it
had
been almost fifteen years since anyone had seen her. And just because she’d been poisoned didn’t mean she’d stopped aging.

He bent down, took out his sword, and rested it against her hands.

This had better work
, he thought as he used the Charmed One’s training to dive down into Snow White’s imprisoned mind.

As Jack fell forward, his body limp, his mind diving into the murky depths of nothingness at the top of Snow White’s consciousness, a blue circle of lightning appeared, and the Wicked Queen stepped out of it.

“That was clever of you, Jack. Almost up to one of your father’s little tricks.” She played electricity between her fingers. “This time, though, I’ll make sure I don’t leave the task half-finished.”

As she raised a hand, crackling with lightning, the entire throne room rumbled. The ceiling crashed in, goblin-size rocks tumbling to the floor, and an enormous green dragon landed on the rubble, breathing fire just over the Wicked Queen’s head.

“Hey, Grandma,” May said from the dragon’s back. “He followed me home. Can I keep him?”

CHAPTER 45

I
knew you’d make a magnificent heir,” the Wicked Queen told May, then put both her hands on the sides of Jack’s head, lightning crackling from them in the dark. “But this changes nothing.”

“Jack?” May said, her voice just above a whisper.

“He’s alive,” the Queen told her. “But not for much longer. Presently, he’s most likely lost within Snow White’s mind.” She smiled. “Unfortunately, he won’t survive long enough to find his way back.”

May shuddered from a combination of relief and fear. She’d known, she’d
known
he was still alive! And there was no
way
she was going to let that change now. “Get. Away. From. Him.”

The Queen paused, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. Snow has a secret I can’t have getting out.” The Queen laughed. “To think, he spent this much time to try to outwit me, only to lose at the end. Everything he’s done, it’s all been for nothing!”

He swam through layer and layer of memories, some familiar, most not. At one point, he remembered a very vague thought of trying to save . . . someone. But who?

And who was
he
?

His feet touched ground in what had to be the scariest-looking woods he’d ever seen, with trees that looked like they wanted to eat him. He shuddered—the sap dripping from the trees’ mouths looked far too much like drool.

A girl screamed, and he used his sword to chop his way through the evil trees. He found a man dressed all in green standing over a younger but still familiar-looking girl.

Was this why he was here? To save a girl from a man in green?

His sword glowed, and he touched it absently, only to have everything flood back in an instant: who he was, why he was here, everything he’d had to leave behind to make it this far—all stored in his sword, just like the Charmed One had left a part of himself in it years before.

But that could wait. He was here for Snow White. Only . . . why did she look so much younger?

The Huntsman held a knife over her, while Snow White held a tree branch between them, using it like a sword to hold him back.

“Don’t do this!” she shouted.

“The Queen has given her order!” the Huntsman said. “She wants your heart, and if I return without it, she will have me killed!”

Jack struck out at the Huntsman, only for the sword to stop in midair, a one-eyed man made of glass holding it in his glass hand as sand fell through his body.

“You don’t belong here,” the man of sand told him.

“Neither does she,” Jack told him, and yanked back on his sword.

It didn’t move.

“I lost one of my charges,” the man of sand told him. “I will not lose another. Continue on, and you shall be trapped here forever as well.”

Jack dropped his sword and kicked out, catching the man in his glass stomach and crashing him backward into the Huntsman. Both fell to the ground, and the Sandman dropped Jack’s sword, which Jack grabbed as he ran past Snow White, dragging her to her feet to follow.

“Who are you?!” she shouted.

“I’m Jack,” he said. “Apparently, I rescue princesses.”

Something snarled behind him, and he threw a look over his shoulder to see the man of sand rising to his feet. Jack waved, then turned around just in time to plow right into the man.

“Trapped it is,” the man said, and sand trickled down between his hands. “I’ve held her here in her own nightmares for years and will do the same for you. Let’s see what
your
nightmares are, Jack.”

“I’ve been living my nightmares?” Snow White said, still holding the stick in her hand.

“Looks like that might continue for a while,” Jack told her.

Jack woke up alone, back in the Queen’s throne room. The Queen stood with her back to him, whispering something quietly while holding something in the air.

“What . . . ?” Jack jumped to his feet, only to have the Queen spin around, holding May by the neck off the floor.

Jack screamed out in rage and struggled to move, but the Queen just held him in place, slowly choking May as the princess held out a hand to Jack. He screamed again, calling for May over and over, not able to move—

And then the Wicked Queen crumpled to the ground, Snow White standing over her with her stick. As Jack watched in horror, the Queen dissolved into sand, filling the man of glass, who lay on his side on the ground.

“Maybe we should get out of here,” Snow said, slowly aging to look more like she had in the coffin. “I for one am tired of living made-up stories. I can’t believe he made me think I was young and scared again!” She growled in frustration.

“You . . . cannot leave,” the man of glass said, only to scream as seven dwarfs each grabbed a leg or an arm and carried him off, much like they’d carried May into the blue fire portal. “It doesn’t matter!” the man shouted as he was dragged away. “You cannot leave with her; she cannot awaken!”

“That brings up a good point,” Jack said. “I’m going to need your help for a second. Can you keep him busy while I bring in a friend?”

Snow White smiled. “How hard can it be?”

The man of glass wrenched free from the dwarfs and shrieked with rage.

And as Jack watched, the man split into a thousand pieces, each of those pieces turning into one of his nightmares. Giants the size of mountains. Sharks with legs. Witches with no faces. Huntsmen, imps with golden hats, Wolf Kings, Sea Kings, mermen, evil fairy queens, Wicked Queens, as well as far too many other things he didn’t even recognize. Cats wearing pants. Trolls beneath bridges. Shadows of shadows. All horrible. All nightmarish.

“You . . . got this?” Jack said, backing away from it all.

Snow grinned. “It’ll be fun. Besides, what can they do? Dreams aren’t real.”

A dream-Malevolent breathed fire at them, and Jack felt the heat. “Maybe you’ve been wishing on too many stars, cause those feel real.”

Snow White laughed wildly. “I’ve been stuck in my head for far too long. It’s time I got to have a little fun too. Who’s first?!”

And with that, she grabbed the Wolf King and kneed him in the stomach, then threw him into the Huntsman and leapt at the nearest witch.

Jack nodded. “You got this.” He touched his sword, and reached up and out of Snow White’s mind, looking for the one person who might put an end to all this.

May noticed the wooden heart box at Jack’s side, and suddenly something clicked into place. “
He
stole it,” she said quietly. “From our house. He . . . he planned this all out?”

“I underestimated him,” the Queen said. “I underestimated the whole family at one time or another. His father. Certainly his uncle, the Charmed One. Even Jillian.”

“Uncle?” May said.

“Let’s go back to that ‘even Jillian’ part,” said a voice from May’s side, and May glanced up to find Lian holding the golden harp, now with a gag in the harp’s mouth to stop her from singing. “By the way,” Lian said, “I think there are going to be some angry fairy queens showing up soon.”

The Queen sneered. “You cannot hurt me, Jillian. None of you can, don’t you realize that? Jack stole my heart for nothing! It is unbreakable. The curse protects it, even as it turned me into this!”

“Let’s see about that,” May said, then shouted “ATTACK!” The dragon leapt forward, its wings sweeping into the sides of the room and knocking stones to the ground as it snapped its jaws at the Queen.

She just smiled, and the dragon froze in place, his mouth wide open.

Then the Queen’s smile disappeared as she flew across the room and slammed into the floor. Lian appeared over her, her sword pointed at the Queen’s throat.

“May, get away from her, let me handle this!” Lian shouted, only to catch a bolt of electricity full in her chest, crashing into the wall behind her, and slumping to the floor.

“I took in the betrayer’s family,” the Queen said, glowing with rage and magic, “knowing that this day would come, but using them anyway. And now they think they can hurt me? Even without the curse, they have no power to rival mine!”

Fire exploded all around the Queen but swept around her to each side like a river splitting at a fork. “Again!” May yelled at the now-free dragon.

Again, fire exploded from the dragon’s mouth, and again, the dragon froze in place.

And Lian attacked once more.

“She can’t take us both on!” May yelled, knowing that wasn’t true but also knowing the longer they distracted the Queen, the longer Jack had.

A shadow fell over May’s eyes, and everything went dark and chilled, like the dead of winter. She shivered, feeling colder than she ever had in her life, like there was no warmth anywhere in the world. “Can’t I?” said a voice from what felt like miles away.

It felt like Jack was gone for hours, swimming back up from the depths of Snow White’s nightmares, through the horrible forest, through a tiny little house sized just right for seven dwarfs, through the Wicked Queen’s laughing face, even, to emerge cold and horrified to a warm oak tree. He quickly glanced behind him at the trail he’d left, a glow shining its way back down that matched the glow in his sword.

“C’mon!” Jack yelled, and grabbed the Charmed One’s arm, pulling him right back down.

Now that he’d found Snow White, the path was easier, and the nightmares passed by so quickly Jack almost didn’t have time for them to terrify him. Finally, he reached the bottom, where everything was far too quiet.

“Snow White?” he said.

He heard heavy breathing, and turned around behind him to find a woman holding two swords in her hand, barely able to stand, on top of what seemed to be a pile of the worst things in the world. “You . . . certainly took . . . your time,” she said.

“Snow?” the Charmed One said, his voice cracking.

“Aleister?” Snow managed to say, right as she collapsed to the ground. The Charmed One was by her side in an instant, even as all the nightmares disappeared, leaving only a man filled with glass.

“You . . . can’t leave,” the glass man said.

Jack punched him in the face, and the glass man went silent.

“It’s been so long,” Snow White told her prince, and Jack got the feeling she’d forgotten anyone else was even there.

“Far too many years,” the Charmed One said, tears running down his face. “We need to get you out of here.”

“I knew you’d come for me,” she told him. “No matter how long it took, I knew you’d come.”

The Charmed One leaned down and brushed her cheek, then hugged her tight. “I did. Nothing could have stopped me.” He frowned, looking up at Jack. “Darling, I need to know . . . you found the Queen’s weakness, didn’t you? What did you learn?”

Snow White smiled. “It was so obvious, I should have known. After all, her uncle was the one who committed the crime. The magician who saved her used dark magic, and dark magic always has an ironic curse. The only one who could stop her heart now is someone who shares her blood, just like her uncle.”

The Charmed One glanced up at Jack, whose mouth dropped. All this time . . . the Queen had kept the one person who could harm her right under her thumb.

“Ironically, there’s a tiny part of the real Eudora still left that keeps her from killing any of her family members,” Snow White continued. “She could only poison me and has needed others to do her dirty work for her, for any who share her blood. No matter how much she might want to, that pure part of herself keeps her from going through with it. Or, at least it had . . . maybe she’s killed that part of herself.”

“I’m going to free you from here now,” the Charmed One told Snow White, brushing her hair out of her face. “I’m so, so sorry it took so long.”

“It doesn’t matter, not anymore,” she said. “We have all the time in the world now.”

The Charmed One slowly nodded, then leaned down and kissed her lips lightly.

Snow White disappeared right out of his arms, and the knight let out a choked sob, then stood back up. “Tell her . . . I’ll always love her,” he told Jack.

Jack nodded. “I will.”

The Charmed One stood up, let out a deep breath, then saluted Jack with his sword.

Then the Charmed One disappeared as well.

The dragon breathed fire into the shadow, but the shadow ate the flame like a living thing, leaving nothing behind.

“Lian?!” May shouted, but no one answered her.

“You’re all alone now, my little month of May,” said the Queen. “Just as I said you would be.”

“No!” May shouted, and the dragon breathed fire again. “I’m not alone. There will always be people who stand up to you!”

The Queen appeared before her, the shadows disappearing. “Will there?” she said with a grin.

“There will,” said a new voice from behind the Queen, and May gasped as a beautiful woman with skin as white as snow held a beating heart in her hands, a knife to it. “It’s been a long time, Eudora.”

The Queen’s eyes went wide, but she sneered. “Snow. So it comes to this. You have my heart, you ridiculous girl. What are you waiting for?”

“Nothing,” Snow said, and stabbed the heart.

The heart didn’t stop beating.

The Queen laughed, and Snow grabbed her chest, dropping the heart. “It seems only fair,” the Queen said, walking slowly over to the shaking Snow White. “I take your heart, you threaten mine. It seems as if it’s my turn again.”

May slowly slid off the frozen dragon and crept toward the heart on the ground. She picked up what looked to be a goblin blade, then everything went bright white as a bolt of electricity hit her.

“
You
,” the Queen said, picking up her heart and holding it over May, as May struggled just to stop shaking from the jolt. “You shall not
touch
that!”

“Only . . . a blood relative,” Snow White said, then shrieked in pain as the Queen focused on her once more.

A blood relative? Images flooded through May’s mind, images of the Queen’s Story Book, the picture of the man who had tried to murder the Queen . . . a familiar-looking man.

Suddenly, she remembered where she’d seen him before.

“The portrait back in my father’s home,” May breathed.

The Queen turned to her. “You are
not
my granddaughter. You can do
nothing
!”