Agatha squinted harder, trying to make out faces through the trees, but like Sader’s painting, all she saw was a blur of bodies and fire. Scared, Agatha searched for the sun, but couldn’t find it through the clouds of smoke.

How much time was left? Twenty minutes? Fifteen? Less?

All at once, it overwhelmed her. She’d never find Sophie in time. She’d never make her destroy that ring. She’d die here, useless and cowering, beneath a storybook shop. Panic ripped through her blood—

Don’t give up.

Cinderella’s voice echoed inside of her like a heartbeat.

For the both of us.

Air slowly came back into Agatha’s lungs. Her mentor was right. Either she helped her Good friends win this war . . .

Or she would die with them.

But first she had to get past that shield.

Steeling with determination, she sprinted towards the Woods. As she tore through town, she passed a father sending his wife and son up a ladder to hide in a chimney . . . a mother and daughter sealing themselves in a barrel . . . and one of the Elders, herding children into the schoolhouse, with Radley amongst them, balancing a fishbowl as he scooted inside. Agatha scanned the scattering villagers for Stefan or Honora, but there was no sign of either of them.

Hurtling past the mills and lake into grassy fields, Agatha started to hear the sickening roar of the war: clashing metal, crushing stymph bones, and girls’ and boys’ screams. Soon, she could make out a few faces, lit by the burning forest—Beatrix atop her stymph, still shooting arrows; Ravan fighting a troll, fist-to-fist; Kiko being chased by a zombie witch—but most of the war was still camouflaged by trees and the blue-black sky. As she got closer to the trees, Agatha began to glimpse small holes in the air: hundreds of them, each no bigger than a grapefruit. No one had ever seen the shield from inside Gavaldon, magically diverted before they could reach it, but Agatha could see the gaps in the barrier now, which meant she could figure out exactly where the shield was. Racing towards these holes, she noticed that the colors outside the holes were brighter and more vibrant than the colors inside them, and for a moment, she marveled at how thin the line between stories and ordinary life really was.

Skidding up to the shield, she reached out her fingers and felt the bubbly, invisible surface between the holes. Before the war, each fairy tale that Evil had rewritten in its favor had punctured holes in the shield over the Reader World, just as it had punctured holes in Readers’ faith in Good. But with Good’s greatest heroes still alive, none of these holes were big enough to let the shield fall yet, nor let Evil pass into their protected realm. Which left only one question . . .

How am I supposed to get through? Agatha thought, panicking.

Through the shield, she could see snatches of heroes past the trees, trying to hold the line against the Dark Army. If the villains pushed them back any farther, they’d have them cornered against the shield—