Grey Warden

Rosana, Pietro and Enzo talk more and come to an understanding; Pietro's shadow steals two of the figurines and takes off.  Pietro knows where it's headed- Maryland.

Fairyland Three Years Ago: The dwarves ask Violet for help; she realizes the Ivory Queen's got her hooks into Hansel and they decide to destroy the mirror.

Inside the mirror, Hansel is communing with the Queen.  She flat out states she's feeding him darkness and dark power, but he doesn't care- this is how it should be.  Suddenly things start shaking and rumbling; Hansel zaps out of the mirror to find Prince Liam & the dwarves pounding on it.  Chaos ensues.  Liam's a good swordsman- he's been trained by Mulan, y'know- but remains on the defensive.  He's actually never killed anything and has the rep of being a softie.  Hansel sticks him with one of those magic darts- courtesy of the Queen- and he falls, then disappears.

Scared shitless, the dwarves cower and Hansel uses his newfound power to charm them into serving him.  So I guess all the players are in place now.

So looks like this is an Ever After ripoff or something, ok- "Inspired By..."  But it's not so much mashup as mish-mash.  Whatever he thinks is cool or offbeat gets jammed into the story, mostly as references, but still knocks you out of the moment.

And I still don't really care.  Anyone ever seen this movie: Avengers Grimm?  This book feels a lot like that- Jim C. Hines meets Roger Corman.