“We need your help,” said Emma.
“Indeed you do,” he said immediately. “It seems quite the tragic ailment has befallen our young friend.” He pointed to Regina. “I told you magic comes with a price. Always.”
“Henry shouldn’t have to pay it,” Regina said.
“No, you should,” said Gold. “And you will, no doubt. But alas, for now, we are where we are.” He smiled politely and folded his hands.
“Can you help us?” Emma said.
“Of course I can,” he said. “True love, my dear. That’s the only magic powerful enough to transcend realms and break any curse. Luckily for you, I happen to have bottled some.”
Regina looked incredulous, Emma saw. “You did?” Emma asked Gold. Apparently this wasn’t a joke. Gold had a bottle of love somewhere.
This new world, Emma thought, is going to take some getting used to.
“Indeed,” said Gold. He looked toward Emma. “From strands of your parents’ hair, I made the most powerful potion in all the realms. So powerful that when I constructed the dark curse, I put one drop on the parchment. As a little safety valve.”
This made sense to Emma, actually. She didn’t know much about magic, but she knew a back door when she saw one. “That’s why I’m the savior,” she said, almost relieved that it wasn’t about religion, or a prophecy, and was simply about the manner in which a lonely old man had constructed a spell. “That’s why I can break it, too.”
“Now she’s getting it,” Gold said.
“I don’t care about breaking the curse,” said Emma. “I just want to save Henry.”
“Which is why it’s your lucky day,” Gold said. “I didn’t use all of the potion. I saved a little. For a rainy day.”
“Well, it’s storming like a bitch. Where is it?”
“Where it is is not the problem,” Gold said. “Getting it is what should worry you. It’s not gonna be easy.”
“Enough riddles, Rumple,” said Regina, and Emma was startled, for a moment, hearing her refer to him by his “real” name. “What do we do?”
“You do nothing,” Gold said. “It has to be Ms. Swan.”
“He’s my son, it should be me,” insisted Regina.
“All due respect, but it’s her son and it has to be her,” Gold said. “She’s the product of the magic, so she must be the one to find it.”
“I can do it,” Emma said. She knew it was true. If it was about saving Henry, she’d be able to do it. Everything that had happened had led to this.
“Don’t trust him, Emma,” Regina said, turning to her. She put her hand on Emma’s arm. Hearing her own name in Regina’s mouth was also disorienting, but the hand on the arm—a brief compassionate touch—was totally surreal.
Emma pulled her arm away. “What choice do we have?” she said.
“You expect me to believe that you saved a dollop of the most powerful magic in the realms, which also happens to be the only magic left in this place, and you’re just going to give it to us to save Henry?” Regina shook her head. “No. He’s up to something.”
“Maybe I’m fond of the boy,” said Gold.
“Why would you be?”
“Why? Why? You didn’t come to me for a why, Regina. You came to me for a how. And that’s what I’m providing. Now then, if you’d be kind enough to stop wasting what little time your boy has left, we might accomplish something.”
Emma knew he was right. “Okay,” she said. “Where is it?”
“With an old acquaintance,” Gold said, looking at Regina. “Someone quite nasty.”
Regina and Emma both waited for him to spit it out. Instead, he knelt down and retrieved a long wooden box from down at his feet. He brought it up and set it on the counter in front of the women.
“Tell me, Regina,” said Gold. “Is your old friend still in the basement?”
“No,” Regina said. “You twisted little imp. You hid it with her?”
Emma looked from one to the other. None of it made sense.
“Not with her,” Gold said. “In her. I knew you couldn’t resist bringing her over. The perfect hiding place!” He cackled.
“Who is ‘her’?” Emma said
“Someone you should be prepared for,” Gold said. He opened the box. Emma looked down and saw a long, gorgeous, golden sword. “Where you’re going, you will need this.”
“What is that?” she said, looking at the gleaming weapon.
“Your father’s sword,” said Gold.
• • •
Emma needed to have two final conversations: one with her son, who wouldn’t be able to talk back, and another with a man made of wood.
Henry had stabilized, and she was allowed to be at his bedside. The many machines around him beeped and clicked as they monitored his vital signs. Emma held his hand.
“You were right, Henry,” she said after a few moments of sitting with him. “About the curse. This town. All of it. I should have believed you. I’m sorry.”
She stared at him. His eyes were closed. She listened to the sound of the machines humming.
Henry’s book was in her lap, and she picked it up and set it on his bedside table.
“For when you wake up,” she whispered.
Storybrooke was dark and quiet as she made her way back downtown, to Granny’s B&B. She knocked at August’s door for a long time, wondering if he had skipped town, before she heard a faint moan coming from within. It was all she needed to hear. She launched herself at the door once, twice. After hurling her shoulder against it for the third time, she heard a crack, and the lock gave. She entered the room.
August was in his bed. And now she could see it: He was turning into wood. His arms were both already a deep, grainy brown, and the wood, like a disease, was creeping up his neck. He looked terrified; all he could do was shift his eyes.
“No,” Emma said, going to him. “No no no no no.”
“What’s happening to you?” she asked sadly, stroking his hair.
“You can see it now,” August said. “You believe.”
Emma nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I do. But how… how can I stop this?”
He spoke slowly, deliberately, staring into her eyes: “Break. The. Curse.”
“I’ll try,” Emma said. “I promise. But first, I have to save Henry. And I need your help.”
“No, you don’t,” August said. “You don’t need my help. You don’t need magic. You don’t need anyone’s help.”
“I do,” she said. “This is all too much. I—I just talked to the Evil Queen and Rumplestiltskin about going on a quest for magic. I have this gold sword; I’m supposed to—to—I don’t know. Who the hell knows? I can’t do this, August. No normal person can.”
“You’re not normal,” he said, smiling. “You’re special. All you have to do is believe.”
“But I told you already, I do believe,” Emma said.
“Not in the curse,” he said. “In yourself, Emma.”
She stared at him. The wood had made it up to his lips now, and she held his head, hoping that it didn’t hurt. He said it one more time: “Believe in yourself. That’s real magic.”
And he was still.
• • •
Sword in hand, Emma walked to the clock tower. Regina was waiting for her at the door, which was padlocked. Without a word, Emma strode up to the lock, struck it with the hilt of the sword, and the thing clanked to the ground, broken.
Emma gestured. “Lead the way.”
They entered a small library with stone walls. Emma’s eyes were drawn to one object in particular: an enormous mirror. Regina went directly to it and touched the glass, and when she did, the mirror jerked sideways, revealing a passageway.
More movement then. Underground machines hummed to life. A frame rose up from below, settling into the open space. Emma realized that it wasn’t a passageway at all. It was an elevator shaft.
“Okay,” Regina said. “Get in.”
“After you,” Emma said.
> “It’s a two-man job,” Regina said, shaking her head. “I have to run the elevator from up here. I lower you down. And besides,” she added, “you’re the one with the sword.”
“I’m supposed to trust that you’re not lowering me down into the pit of doom, then?” Emma said.
“I don’t think you have a lot of choice, Ms. Swan.”
Emma thought of Henry, lying in his hospital bed. Regina was right.
“What is down there, Regina?”
“An old enemy,” Regina said. “Her punishment was unique. She’s been down there for twenty-eight years, trapped in another form. She doesn’t want to hear from me.”
Emma took this in, not believing that she’d heard the whole truth. “Okay,” she said finally. “I’m going down there, but let’s be clear about something, ‘Your Majesty.’ I know who you are now. What you’ve done. Whom you’ve hurt. Whom you’ve killed. And there’s one thing you need to know before we go any further.” She gave Regina a long, cold stare. “The only reason you’re not dead is because I need your help to save Henry. And if he dies? So do you.”
Regina nodded brusquely. “Let’s get on with it.”
Emma stepped into the elevator then, and Regina slowly lowered her down.
It took two minutes, and the lower she went, the darker things got. When the elevator finally settled onto the ground, Emma could hardly see anything. Looking up, she saw just a faint square of light where she’d begun. She was deep underground.
She stepped off the elevator into a smoky cavern. It was hot, too—not at all what she’d expected. Her light caught something, causing a glimmer, and she stepped out across the rocky floor. She knelt in front of something—something big. Something glass. It took her a moment to figure it out. It was a coffin. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought that it matched up with the Snow White story. What was it? Hadn’t Snow White been in a glass coffin?
Emma stood and took a breath. She looked around.
And then she saw it.
At first, she thought it was another light, someone else shining a flashlight at her. But it wasn’t.
It was an eye.
A yellow eye.
All was still, though, and Emma took a tentative step forward and reached out toward the blackness beside the eye. Her hand touched something that wasn’t stone.
What in the hell is this? she thought.
It was scaly, warm. She rubbed her hand along it.
And then the walls began to move. She heard a grunt, and then a roar. She stumbled backward, eyes wide, realizing what this was: a dragon.
It came to life with a screech and a ball of flame.
• • •
Mary Margaret found the book in Henry’s hospital room, but there was no sign of Emma. Whatever was wrong, she was out there, somewhere, taking care of it. This was why Mary Margaret loved her friend so much; Emma knew how to fight back. That had been missing, in Mary Margaret’s own life, for a long time. She admired it.
Dr. Whale had explained the situation, and now Mary Margaret decided that the least she could do was stay with Henry, to be with him through this. She could read him a story.
And she did. She told him the story of how Snow White had sacrificed herself to end the conflict with the Queen, and how she’d fallen into a magical slumber because of the apple. Charming, meanwhile, had escaped from the Queen’s dungeons, and with the help of Rumplestiltskin, he was able to finally locate his true love once again. She was not well when he found her. Not at all.
“When Prince Charming saw his beloved Snow White,” she read, “there in her glass coffin, he knew all that was left was to say good-bye. He had to give her one last kiss. But when their lips met, true love’s kiss proved more powerful than any curse. A pulse of pure love shuddered out and engulfed the land. As her eyes opened, it was clear, no matter what, that they would live happily…”
Mary Margaret paused, took a breath. She was crying. It had just… happened.
She went on: “… happily… ever after.”
She closed the book, then closed her eyes. It was all such a fantasy. It didn’t work like that, did it?
“I’m sorry, Henry,” she said, taking his hand. “I gave this book to you because I knew… I knew life doesn’t always have a happy ending. But I thought… I thought that that was just not fair.”
She squeezed his hand, remembering how David—John Doe then—had woken up after hearing a story about love. And for a second, she believed it was happening again—she heard a beep from one of the machines and looked back at Henry hopefully. However, the beeps then became urgent, and sounded more like warnings. Nurses began to rush into the room.
“What’s happening?” she said.
Dr. Whale burst in. “He’s crashing,” he said. “You have to leave.”
Mary Margaret found herself in the hall, her hand over her mouth, her heart pounding. Nurses and doctors huddled around Henry; she couldn’t see anything. But she could see the concern in the eyes of the doctors and hear it in the sounds of their voices.
Henry was dying.
• • •
The dragon burst up into the air and showed Emma its full, terrifying form. Wings spread, it shrieked down at her. It was almost too big, and too frightening, and too shocking for her brain to even admit that it was real. Which didn’t much matter, at least for the first pass: Her body took care of the self-preservation. She ran, changed direction, and dove as the dragon swooped down over her, raining fire down at her heels. This bitch is pissed, Emma thought, getting to her feet.
Overhead, the dragon was circling, and she ran to the other side of the cavern, where she saw a good outcropping of rock. She dove under it just in time, feeling the heat of the flame against the skin of her cheeks. This time, the dragon didn’t swoop away.
It landed.
Emma turned, eyes wide, and looked at the growling creature, which was not ten feet from her. She feebly held the sword up, but it was heavy and ungainly. She sensed that the dragon was amused.
“Screw this,” she said.
She dropped the sword, pulled her gun, and started to shoot.
After firing into the heart of the thing, there was no sign that the bullets had even caused a tickle. It lunged at her, and she ran to the other side of the cavern, the dragon snapping its huge jaws just behind her head. At the far wall, she steadied herself.
She changed her aim and fired at the head in a tight pattern near the nose. She could see small geysers of blood erupting when each bullet hit, but again, they seemed to have little impact.
“Really?” Emma said aloud.
As she did, she saw that the dragon’s chest now seemed to be glowing orange. She figured she was going to have to dig that potion out of it.
The sword was on the other side of the cavern, back where she’d dropped it. She tossed the gun aside, visualizing the move she’d have to make to get the sword. The dragon turned to face her. She smiled at it. Then went straight for it.
The dragon seemed confused by Emma’s charge, and was late shooting a long plume of fire at her; so late that she made it past, and made it under the legs of the huge beast. She dove for the sword and felt it in her hand. The dragon, confused, slowly turned around, screeching in frustration.
It rose up then, ready to turn her into a pyre.
Emma waited as long as she could.
And then she threw the sword.
The blade struck the beast directly at the glowing spot on its chest, and the dragon screamed an ungodly scream, its wings flapping in agony. The scream, however, did not last long. All at once, the tremendous creature exploded into a ball of flame and ash.
Emma hit the deck and waited for the hot wind to pass over her. When all was again quiet, she approached what was left of the body—really just a pile of black crud. She sifted around for a moment, but the potion wasn’t hard to find. A white jeweled egg, the perfect carrying case for a love potion. Emma collected it, found her sword, and headed bac
k to the elevator shaft.
Breathing heavily, still not really admitting to herself that she’d just fought a dragon, Emma yanked the cord and yelled up the shaft: “Regina, pull me up!” After a moment, the elevator jerked to life.
Emma studied the egg as best she could as she lurched upward. She’d lost her flashlight somewhere, but the light from above let her see the clasp. She opened the egg up and saw the vial inside, glowing a strange violet hue. So that’s what love looks like, she thought.
About ten feet from the top of the shaft, the elevator stopped moving. Emma looked up. “Regina?”
A head peeked over the side.
Not Regina.
“Gold?” said Emma. “What are you doing here? Where’s Regina?”
“She had me take over,” he said. “You’ve got the egg, I see!”
She was good at telling when people were lying, but even the worst judge of truth would have been suspicious of Gold, the way he eagerly leaned toward her, awaiting a reply.
“Yeah, I got it,” she said. “Pull me the rest of the way up.”
“I can’t,” he said. “The elevator is broken. You’re going to have to climb the rest of the way.”
Emma looked down at her pants and her pockets, trying to think of some way to secure the egg for the climb.
“It’s too fragile, you can’t climb with it,” he said. “Toss it up to me, then climb.”
“No way, Gold,” she said. “Just hold your horses.”
“Henry doesn’t have the time, Ms. Swan.”
Emma looked up, and sighed. She had to trust him. She didn’t like it, but she had to.
She tossed the egg.
Gold caught it, looked at it for a moment, nodded at her, and disappeared.
“Gold?” she said. “Gold?”
Nothing.
He was gone.
• • •
It took her ten minutes to get up out of the elevator, and another five to get to the hospital. She didn’t even consider going after Gold. She went to Henry. What August had said—you don’t need magic—had circled through her mind the entire time she climbed, like a dragon in her head. Yes, maybe all of it was real, and yes, maybe there was some crazy logic to the curse, but she knew one thing: She loved that kid. She loved him more than she loved herself. She’d never cared about herself enough to know that she was capable of giving love to someone else, but she knew now. And so she went to him. To Henry. To family.