The Thirteenth Fairy

The first book in the Chronicles of Never After series opens with a prologue set in the fairy-tale kingdom of Westphalia, where 11 of the 13 fairies gather to bless the newborn Princess Eliana. The twelfth fairy is dead, and the thirteenth, Carabosse, the most powerful of all, has been sent a deliberate "unvitation" ordering her to stay away. King Vladimir and his new wife, Queen Olga, preside over the ceremony, but the narrative reveals that Eliana's birth mother, Queen Rosanna, died only days earlier and Vladimir remarried almost immediately. Carabosse, Rosanna's sister and Eliana's aunt, arrives despite her exclusion. Contrary to the traditional tale, she is breathtaking. She lifts the baby tenderly from the crib as Olga demands the child back and announces she has come to bestow her blessing.

The story shifts to the modern world, where 12-year-old Filomena Jefferson-Cho walks through North Pasadena, California. Filomena is adopted; her father, Carter Cho, is Korean-Filipino, and her mother, Bettina Jefferson, is British. Both are writers. Frequently bullied at school for her appearance and adoption, Filomena has few friends. Her overprotective parents have allowed her to walk alone for the first time to pick up the final book in the Never After series, a fantasy saga about a hero named Jack the Giant Stalker. At the bookstore, her friend Mrs. Stewart delivers devastating news: The book will never be published because the author, Cassiopeia Valle Croix, is dead or has disappeared.

Walking home, Filomena notices a cloaked figure following her. The boy pushes her to the ground just as a thunderbolt crashes onto the pavement. She recognizes it from the books as an Ogre's Wrath and recites a fairy spell that stops the attack. The boy introduces himself as Jack the Giant Stalker and insists the books are real history. Filomena refuses to believe him and runs home. Jack's companion, Alistair Bartholomew Barnaby, a cheerful prince from the kingdom of Parsa, has been hiding nearby. The two are stranded in the mortal world after fleeing through a portal called the Heart Tree while escaping ogres.

At school the next day, when bullies surround her, Filomena instinctively casts a time-freeze spell. Jack and Alistair appear, help her escape, and use vine magic to lift all three into a treetop. Filomena finally accepts that Never After is real. The boys explain that Queen Olga's ogre army has been conquering kingdoms and that Olga is searching for Aladdin's Lamp, which holds the most powerful magic in the realm. Filomena leads them to the Hollywood Hills, where she uses a magical telescope called the Seeing Eye to spot the Pied Pipe, the flute-shaped key to the portal. When an Ogre's Wrath injures Jack, Filomena plays the pipe and unlocks the portal. She helps carry Jack through and emerges in Never After, awed by the fairy-tale landscape.

Jack leads them to Vineland, his home region, to meet Zera, also known as Scheherazade, one of the 13 fairy sisters who lives in exile after ogres destroyed her kingdom. Zera's cottage is hidden by a glamour, an enchantment of invisibility. When Zera examines Filomena's copy of the Never After book, she recognizes the author photo as her missing sister Carabosse, who wrote the books under a pen name. Zera insists Carabosse was not evil and must have had a reason for cursing Westphalia.

That evening, ogres breach Vineland's defenses. Jack lassoes the ogre general with his vines, and Zera kills the general with her Dragon's Tooth sword. After the army retreats, Filomena rescues Alistair from a straggling ogre by casting a spell that dissolves its limbs. At a feast afterward, Zera whispers a spell over Filomena, revealing a luminescent mark on her forehead: a crescent moon surrounded by 13 stars, the mark of Carabosse. This explains how a mortal girl can cast fairy spells. Overwhelmed, Filomena demands to go home.

Interspersed prologues reveal the full truth about the christening. In a vision, Carabosse saw that Olga is actually an ogre who poisoned Rosanna, enchanted Vladimir, and plans to devour Eliana. To protect the baby, Carabosse cursed the kingdom to sleep for thousands of nights, until one carrying her mark arrives, the dragons rise, and the wolves return. Olga countered with her own curse, vowing to make Carabosse reviled. Carabosse snatched the baby and vanished.

Back in North Pasadena, the mark still glows on Filomena's forehead. At school, her former best friend, Maggie Martin, has joined the bully group. At home, Filomena discovers her Never After books have rewritten themselves: The heroes lose, and the titles reflect ogre victories. She realizes her departure caused the stories to collapse. When she confesses everything to her parents, they believe her immediately, revealing they found her as a baby under a tree with a letter warning them to protect her from ogres. Her parents drive her to the portal and say an emotional goodbye.

In Never After, Filomena proposes they arm themselves with dragonhide armor, Dragon's Tooth weapons, and the Wolves of the Wood as allies. She leads Jack and Alistair to the Deep, the underground dragon realm, where they face a Game of Threes, three lethal trials in which one failure means death for all. Each passes a challenge, and the dragon council agrees to supply armor and weapons in exchange for dragons being allowed to return to Westphalia. In the mortal world, Gretel Cobbler, the teenage daughter of a famous Never After tailor, crafts their armor and joins the quest. When they return to Never After, the school bullies are revealed to be actual trolls led by Rumpelstiltskin. In the battle, the trolls kidnap Alistair because he is the key to locating and opening the cave that holds Aladdin's Lamp.

To summon the Wolves of the Wood, Filomena dons a red cloak and ventures alone into the forest. After fending off an ogre with her new armor, she is met by a wolf pack that bows before her. The wolves are shapeshifters who take human form as teenagers, and their leader, Rolf, pledges to follow the wearer of the Red Cloak. The wolves rescue Alistair, and the expanded group travels by magic carpet to a secret desert cavern. Alistair opens it with the words "Open sesame," but inside, Queen Olga ambushes them. When ogres hold blades to her friends' throats, Filomena surrenders the tiny lamp she found on the cavern floor. Olga rubs it and commands the genie to reveal Princess Eliana. The genie points to Filomena's forehead: She is Princess Eliana, the baby Carabosse spirited away thousands of years ago.

Enraged, Olga smacks the lamp away. It rolls to Filomena, who grabs it and wishes to defeat Olga. The genie tells her she already has everything she needs, then vanishes, freed by his final wish. The wolves attack in their animal forms, and after fierce fighting, Olga retreats. A final prologue reveals how Carabosse brought baby Eliana to the mortal world, left her with the Jefferson-Cho family, then wrote the 12 Never After books before her magic faded and she disappeared.

Back home, Filomena learns that King Vladimir died fighting Olga and that Westphalia has awakened from its enchanted sleep. Zera has concealed the mark on Filomena's forehead with a spell, so she no longer needs to hide it. Filomena embraces her dual identity: She is Princess Eliana of Westphalia, but she will always be Filomena Jefferson-Cho. Her parents ground her. The updated Never After book covers now include Filomena and her companions. When Jack, Alistair, and Gretel arrive with a new mission to retrieve the Stolen Slipper from Cinderella, Filomena reveals she has begun writing the thirteenth book herself. She introduces her friends to her parents, says goodbye, and sets off on the next adventure.