Free Once Upon the End (Half Upon a Time) by James Riley

purposely skipping over the story of Snow White.
    Shift: An oak tree in the middle of a quiet field of grass—
    And there, the Charmed One stopped. “We have lost the glass man within your dreams,” he told her. “But he will continue to hunt you down, not resting until you are imprisoned here forever. For he is the guardian of this land, and what he does, he does for the sake of every dreamer. If a person could appear in the dreams of others without their knowledge, that person would gain untold power over them.”
    “I’m not here to gain told or untold power,” May said, breathing hard from the run through crazy. “I’m only here to find . . . a weapon. The Fairest.”
    “A weapon?” the Charmed One said. “That’s an interesting way of viewing it.”
    “I really hate this whole vague thing, by the way,” May said.
    The Charmed One shrugged. “That means we must travel to his castle and most likely defeat him to find what you seek.”
    “So we just stab him until he breaks again?”
    The Charmed One shook his head this time. “First, we cannot harm the guardian beyond repair, for that would leave these realms in danger. But fortunately for that, there is very, very little you can do to actually harm the glass man. His sand makes up this realm, and to kill him, you would have to destroy everything here.”
    “Destroying dreams?” May said. “You know, if that’s all it takes—”
    The Charmed One frowned. “It appears that you have other worries as well.” And with that, a window appeared between them, showing a black dragon diving toward Phillip and Penelope.
    “WHAT?!” May shouted. “No, he can’t hurt her, I need her help! And also to get me out of here!”
    “You worry about her instead of them?” the Charmed One asked.
    She grimaced. “I’ve heard how this goes. Not to mention I’ve read the story. And seen the movie. What I haven’t read is something about some glass man made of sand . . .” She trailed off, realizing what she just said, then shook her head. “Ugh, I have. The Sandman. I hate this place. Not everything is literal, people! Sometimes things are just metaphors!”
    “Are they?” the Charmed One asked her, raising an eyebrow.
    “Don’t you even dare start,” she said, pointing at him threateningly. “Where is the Sandman’s castle? I don’t have time for vague.”
    “There are no locations here,” the Charmed One said, his voice fading out with the scene, as everything shifted to a castle made entirely of translucent bricks of glass, sand falling slowly within.
    “Well,” May said, “that certainly speeds things up.” She glanced around and sighed. “Annnnnnnd he’s gone. Yet I’m still talking.” She closed her mouth deliberately, staring up at the castle, then realized she was holding a handful of sand. She pushed as much as she could into her pockets, then dusted her hands off. Where the sand fell, tiny little flashes of light exploded, then faded out. Odd.
    Okay. She was here at the castle, yes. But she didn’t have a weapon. She couldn’t hurt the Sandman. And the Charmed One hadn’t said one word about how she was supposed to use the sand he’d told her to bring. So really, nothing really new for her.
    She did know one thing, though. There was no way that she was ever, ever going to call this place a sandcastle. Nope. Not gonna happen.
    With that, she set out into the sandcastle (ugh, there it was already) in her dreams to find the fairest one of all.

CHAPTER 12
    T he sandcast— the castle of sand was empty. May probably could have seen that from the outside, given that it was made of glass. But all the swirling sand gave her a headache. Where was the Sandman, anyway? Out writing nightmares?
    She made her way through the glass castle, searching for a dungeon or a cloudy room or something where the Fairest might be held. Where would one hide something in a glass castle? One wouldn’t, probably, just like one hopefully wouldn’t throw